Battletech Clan Invasion

So Catalyst Games Battletech Clan Invasion Kickstarter finally shipped Wave 1 rewards.  I late backed this and went with just Wave 1 stuff as I am just dipping the toes in and not going all in so to speak.  The Kickstarter came with a exclusive box but I sort of like the other box better.  Personally I was never much of a Clanner in the past as we mainly did Inner Sphere Mercenary stuff in the 3025-3050 era.  We were starting to get out of it by the time the Clan Invasion started initially and the Clan mechs were just so over powered in an Era before Battle Values that it did not seem right.

While it was fun to discover lost tech during the 3025+ era and integrate it into our mechs in a roleplaying type campaign structure, looking back on it I see it more as how FASA was trying to tweak the game.  Most mechs picked up considerable additional firepower either with better weapons or heat management but often the Armor or Speeds were only slightly increased.  This increased the carnage rate of the game and who does not like to see things go boom (as long as you are not in it). 

Clan Invasion just took this to a crazy level as they were just another step above.  If it was modern large corporate wargaming one would acuse the company of making unbalanced rules to sell more models but given that you would get like a 100 standees in the box of Reinforcements 2 it does not seem like there was a ton of money in it.  It might have had to do with the right issues that they were having with many of the 80's mech designs so they needed to make people really love these new mechs.

Anyway, Battletech has come full circle and is back to 3050 with a new clan invasion box which is an expansion box to the Game of Armored Combat box.  It is not a full game and does not come with the core game rules.  It comes with rules for the new technology that the inner sphere has access to by 3050 and the new clan technology of 3050.   So it has mech contrusction rules for both factions set at 3050 timeline compared to those for 3025 of the Game of Armored Combat Box.  It also has rules for the Elemental power suit infantry of the Clans as well as rules and discussion of the organization of clan units and their system of Honor.

Here are the contents of the kickstarter box.  You get 5 Clan Mechs, 2 Points of Elementals, 2 Double Sided Game Maps, Reference Sheet, Standee and Terrain Card Sheet, Clan Invasion Rulebook, Clan Invasion Fluff book, 2 dice, card set with Clan Pilots and Clan Alpha Strike cards, Large Double Sided Map of the Inner Sphere in 3025/3050, and one record sheet book that has both the Clan Mechs and record sheets for the 3050 versions of the mechs from the Beginner Box and the Game of Armored Combat box.  I would have liked also seen some new Alpha Strike cards for the 3050 versions of the Armored Combat Mechs as the lance packs generally have a 3025 on one side and 3050 version on the other side.

These are the Elementals.  Pretty nice looking and well scaled to the mechs.

Nova and Adder Mechs

Executioner and Grendal

 Timber Wolf (but always Mad Cat to me)

Now this set retails for 50 dollars while the Star Packs of 5 Clan Mechs are only like 25 or 30 so your are paying quite a bit for the other box components.  So you can get 2 Stars for this box which is probably a better buy if you are doing this with your friends and do not need multiple copies of the rules or already have those rules from other sources as they are not changed that I could see from one already in print. 

Battletech: A Game of Armored Combat Contents

With the Clan Invansion Kickstarter shipping soon people grabbing that box at retail might need some Inner Sphere mechs to curb stomp.  Those can be found in this box along with everything you need to play some classic Battletech in 3025.

All the contents spread out nicely.  You get 8 mechs, so each side and have a lance with 1 light, 1 medium, 1 heavy, and  1 assault mech.

You get 8 mechwarrior cards if you want to not name your own pilots but instead use those provided.

You also get Alpha Strike cards for the more miniature wargame version of Battletech that is Alpha Strike.

 

 

 Background materials.  A second short story to go with the one in the beginner's box.

Full rulebook.  Honestly finding differences between these rules and the ones we played with like 30 years ago is not easy.  Partial cover is different.

Certainly looks nicer than the second edition book I had back in the day.

You get 8 stand ups and some tokens for modifying the maps along with the very important reference sheet.

They provide the mech sheets as a booklet but they have a free digital copy available online.  There are like 16 mechs in the book with most of the mechs have 2 variants.

Significantly more complicated maps than the one from the Beginner Box.

Commando and Locust

Shadowhawk and Wolverine which also appears in the Beginner box.

Thunderbolt and Catapult

 

Awesome and Battlemaster

Battletech Beginner Box Mini Review

So I picked up the Battletech Beginner box a few weeks ago.  I detailed the contents here.  My idea was to give it a go with the kids.  I am pretty sure I started playing it at about the age my youngest is now.  The first thing I noticed from the beginner box is that the game has changed very little in its 35 years in production.  The beginner box has simplified rules from the main starter box.  It has removed Heat, Internal Structure, Terrain Levels, and Pilot checks to name a few things removed in this simplified version.  Mechs just have armor for their sections so when that armor is destroyed that section is destroyed with affects on the mech depending on what section. 

Since the game was written 35 years ago it is very table and 2d6 heavy compared to any modern game.  Tables of weapon ranges, table of attack modifiers, table for hit locations, table for mission hit numbers.   This line is called Classic Battletech and it certainly has that feel.  The GATOR mechanic for determining attack target numbers sort of shows how old school the game is.

First you start with Gunnery Skill (G) and then you add a modifier for Attacker movement modifier (A) determined by movement type and then the Target movement modifier(T) determined by how many hexs the target moved.  Next you have the Other modifiers (O) which is general terrain like wooded hexes between the attacker and the target or that the target is standing in.  Finally you have a range modifier (R) to determine the final target number.

So for example if you have normal Gunnery skill of 4 and then ran it gets you a +2, and the target moved 5 squares yields another +2.  The there is one light woods in the line of site adding another +1, and the target is in a light woods for another +1.  They are 6 hexes away which is say medium range for another +2.  Added that all up and you need a 12 to hit on your 2d6. 

Now they suggest using different colored D6 to mark on mechs what they moved and how far to make tracking the modifiers easier from the movement phase but they do not provide the dice or tokens which could accomplish the same thing in either this set or the bigger starter box.

As is clear from example above it gets very hard to hit things in the game.  This makes for many missed shots.  It also puts a lot of luck in the game when you are needing 10+'s to hit many turns.

This seemed to be the problem we had in both our trial games.  In the first I had my 13 and 8 year old duel with the two plastic mechs on the grassy map with all the standard terrain in place.  The kids moved around terrain and sort of got the feeling for it but the 8 year old had the hot dice and got enough damage on the 13 year old that she was not feeling the game was fair.

In the second game, my 8 year old and I used the two plastic medium mechs to take on 2 Locust Standees.  I piloted the standees and did my best to make them hard to hit and I did a good job of that.  It really slowed down the game play and seem to take several turns before any real damage can be done and need say more explosions to really get him hook in.  My plan was to follow the locust up with the thunderbolt heavy mech but we were sort of done after the Locusts.

If you are used to skirmish games were you might run 8 or so models and take down models with a turn or two of attacks, Battletech will seem strange.  The models have lots of staying power usually and a few mechs on each side can keep a battle going for quite some time.

The most powerful weapon on a mech in the box does like 10 damage.  As you can see from the little dots on the armor diagram (these dry erase mech sheets are great, wish they came with the bigger set also), every spot on the medium mechs other than the head can absorb at least one of those hits.  When you added in the scatter of the hits onto the mech it takes a fair number of hits to take someone out.

Playing it reminded me a little bit of how I learned to teach players Xwing by giving them the Falcon.  The turret there means you can shoot every turn so there are no dead turns.  Seems like I needed to start the first mission by stripping out the terrain (there are double sided terrain modifier tiles which can be used for this in the beginner box).    This will increase the hit rate and increase the excitement.   It will also remove at least one layer of modifiers to the hit number.

I recently picked up the bigger box to add to the plastic mechs from this and to keep working on teaching the game.  They just finished late pledges on a kickstarter but I passed as I am not willing to invest that much at this point as I am still trying to determine if the youngest likes it enough to keep playing.

Battletech Beginner Box Contents

So I used to play Battletech a long time ago.  I was an annoying little brother who tagged along with his older brother and his friends to play it.  We pretty much had everything but that was over 30 years ago.  I saw this box set on the shelf at the local bookstore which reminded me I did enjoy the game so I picked it up recently to give it a try with the kids.  This is the basic rules starter box which retails at 20 dollars.

Here is the collection of stuff from the box.  Not bad for 20 dollars these days.

These mech cards are the best thing in the box.  They are dry erase so you can mark down the damage, then erase and repeat next time.  If you look close you will see these cards have only armor and no internal structure.  This is the basic version of the game so that level of detail is left out.  There are 8 cards with 2 for each mech type introduced in the box.

 You also get 4 double sided pilot cards which add a little something extra with different Gunnery skills and special rules.  The cards have a point value which you are supposed to match between to two sides.

On the punch out sheet you get some double sided terrain pieces to put on the plastic map.  You can use these to add or change tree types or cover elevations or such.

Desert Blanks.

Short full color gloss rules book.  You also get a 4 page fluff primer.  You can see from the page I selected that tables and modifiers are still the  name of the game.

Classic Cardboard Standees.  These are the mechs I am used to.  We had two reinforcement boxes when we were kids to cover almost all the mechs.  Here you get 8 so two lances of 4.  Red verses Blue but the Locusts are different colors.  Not quite sure why.  I guess they need camo since a solid hit from any of the other mechs will punch through their armor.

You also get 2 preassembled plastic mechs.  Griffin and Wolverine.  Detail is not bad but there are some mold lines and sprue cuts that need cleaning up.

We got 2 games in last week to discuss in a future post.