Now that the playtest has concluded (by two months, but I wanted to get a bunch of extra reps in to nail down a couple of my thoughts) I’m taking a look at the last couple playtest packets (mobility, equipment, and missions) to see whether my initial impressions on them ended up being correct. Some of these packets, especially the missions packet, did get a few revisions from Catalyst over the course of the playtest cycle, which did help fix a handful of the issues we saw in our initial glance at the packets. I do expect that there will be a few more changes between the final versions of the packets and the new core book that they’re going in, but we’ll need to wait and see.

Before diving into each individual packet, my overall feel on these is very very positive. There are a handful of minor things I’m still concerned about, but nothing to the degree of the original side arc change (which was confirmed in a stream to be not making it into the final book). While I can’t say I want the AP ammo change to go ahead as written, if it does I won’t be too mad - it’ll just be a minor thing to talk about at your tables for how much of it you’re ok with players using.

Packet 1: Survivability Rules ran from September 9th until October 13th. We talked about our final thoughts on it here.

Packet 2: Mobility Rules, ran from September 29th to November 10th.

Packet 3: Gear, ran from October 28th to December 8th.

Packet 4: Missions ran from December 12th to January 19th.

Packet 5: Rules for BSP Aerospace, ran from October 28th to Jan 19th.

We’re not talking about Packet 5 in this article - I’ll fully admit that I never had a chance to actually use it, though I’ve heard that it’s decent. I just don’t find aerospace a particularly interesting part of the game, so never wanted to take the time to use it.

SL-17 Shilone Aerospace Fighters. Credit: Valk

Lynn: I did spend time with the Aerospace packet, more than I did the other playtest packets, in fact. It’s usable, and was largely improved by the changes made during the playtest campaign (although I think bombs were effectively nerfed into unusability), but my experience was that fighters are fragile enough that this system pretty much falls into the pattern “the players’ planes kill each other until there’s only one survivor, then that plane gets in one or maybe two attack runs until it either runs out of fuel or gets popped by anti-aircraft fire.”

The Raven player in my local meta convinced me to try full Total Warfare aerospace rules with the same forces we used in the BSP playtest games, and even with the godawful layout of the TW aero rules, I did find the “full” implementation of aerospace combat significantly more engaging/enjoyable than the BSP minigame: make of that what you will.

Nightstar. Credit: Jack Hunter

Package 2: Mobility

This packet received a couple changes to how hip crits work, specifically removing the minimum 2 MP loss. This does quite a bit to address all of our concerns about mechs being immobilized too easily, though does leave some strangeness where a 3/5 mech could suffer two leg actuator crits, drop to 1 MP, then take a hip crit and bump back up to 2 MP (the hip halves it rounding up, so 1.5 MP rounds up to 2 MP). Even with that weirdness I think it’s a lot more functional than the first draft. There’s a similar change in the leg destruction section, where losing a single leg still leaves you with a minimum walking MP of 1.

Jack: Playing with these rules I’ve found that they didn’t change much about the balance of the game, but did speed up play and keep units contributing better. I’m a particular fan of reducing the impact of a gyro crit and being able to stand back up more easily, as I ended up with a lot fewer mechs flopping around on the ground.

Lynn: Hip crits having potentially counterintuitive interactions with other leg crits is just tradition at this point. I’m just going to fall back on Total Warfare’s excuse/justification: “Since the leg becomes locked in a straight position, it serves as a sort of crutch, making movement easier in some cases than moving on a number of free-flexing damaged actuators.”

Meanwhile, as the PSR Failure Queen of Goonhammer’s BT writing crew, anything that makes it easier to stand up from prone has my approval!

Peri: The crit changes here are fairly good but hips remain a deeply weird and possessed part of this game. The hips actually lie pretty frequently, but this is probably the most functional version of those rules that we have ever gotten. Nothing in here was an issue on remotely the same scale as the side arc changes.

Mauler. Credit: Rockfish

Package 3: Gear

These were some of our favorite changes, and the packet revisions were primarily for clarity rather than making any substantial changes. The only functionality changes I can see are that AP ammo dropped from 0.8x ammo multiplier to 0.6x, bringing it to parity with precision ammo, and shields reduce in effectiveness when arm crits are taken.

Jack: Most of my thoughts on this packet are positive, particularly the c3 and MRM changes. I’ve enjoyed c3 being actually functional even when ECM is around, and though 30% might be a touch expensive it was lowered a bit in package 4, which I felt leaves it in a good spot. MRMs will definitely need a slight BV adjustment, but they’re a lot of fun now - the super short short range coupled with longer medium/long range bands is interesting to play with, especially with c3, and now that they can actually hit reliably they’re a fun way to bring significant chunks of damage.

I was incorrect about my Narc concerns. After testing them they’re certainly more usable, but they’re not overpowered - getting them to hit still isn’t reliable enough to be a problem, especially as they don’t take effect until the following turn and get jammed by ECM. They’re something that can actually get used now, but not something that’ll dominate battlefields.

The ATM ammo cluster change I’ve ended up deciding I dislike. While it does provide some unique identity and makes a little more logical sense, it’s around 15% worse shooting into ferrolam. Ferrolam is already very good, and being able to dump lots of 5 damage clusters into it was the best counter - I don’t like that this ends up nerfing one of the best weapons against it. That said, I won’t be super bothered either way.

The other change I’ve ended up disliking after testing is AP ammo. It’s fine when you’ve got one or two guns shooting it, but there are multiple good mechs running 4 LAC5s, and having those do a crit one in six times they hit just isn’t fun to play into. It’s essentially a hard counter to slow mechs with lots of armor, and I don’t think those needed to be countered. While I’m glad it’s usable and not just a waste of rules text, I hope it gets toned down a little bit in the final.

Lynn: The main thing I’m hoping goes through is the softening of rules for rapid-fire autocannons jamming. It took me a long time to warm up to the risk of running Ultra ACs, and I have yet to actually field a RAC: I know from long experience not to trust my dice. The playtest changes actually put miniguns on the menu for me, and that’s exciting! I’ll likely end up running an Anzu about it!

Peri: Basically all of these changes were good to neutral. ATMs clustering in 6s instead of 5s makes them net neutral into everything but Ferro Lam, where, as Jack said, this is a significant nerf. We will need to look at what BV shakes out as but the MRM-40 will slot in to the same role as an ATM-12 loaded with HE, just on a different techbase. Lots of damage for, likely, a reasonable price. AP ammo is a bit of a massive annoyance in any significant quantity, but the main things that can abuse this are all carrying LACs. I would, honestly, just ban LACs and PACs from using AP ammo, that would plug the main abuse case and make people consider taking something like a Jagermech or Mauler with a big pile of small bore standard autocannons, which is a good thing.

Lyran Commonwealth Nightsky, Atlas II, Howler/Baboon, and Hermes II. Credit: SRM

Package 4: Missions

This packet had the most substantial changes between the initial release and the final playtest version - 1.03. The missions Control the Field, Objective Raid, and Steel Rain all switched from end-game scoring to progressive (big improvement). Failed landings on a combat drop had their potential scatter cut in half, making them much less dangerous, commander edge was limited a bit so forces only have one commander, forced withdrawal got a modifier when using standard or compact engines to give units a chance to not flee (though I still recommend not using forced withdrawal at all), random duration was changed from the end phase of a turn to the start phase - that way you always know as you make moves whether it’ll be the final turn, and false objectives were removed from any of the pre-designed scenarios. While the rules for them still exist for custom scenarios, the chance to win or lose based on a single die roll that you can’t influence isn’t particularly interesting gameplay, so it’s not in anything standard.

Jack: Especially with the changes in v3 of the packet I love these. There are still a few missions I won’t generally use - I’m not a fan of Hold the Line as I think it’s tilted quite a bit towards the defender, the packet has made pickup games incredibly easy. I also think that playing long edge has made 3/5 mechs much more usable - while I’d never take them on short edge deployment as they’ll either fall well behind my other units or cause me to give up a chance at early control of the middle, those issues are significantly mitigated on long edge deployment and I’ve been able to make reasonably effective use of them. This packet has certainly broadened my opinion on map edges from only wanting to play short edge deployment to being happy either way. I’d still like there to be a chance of no complications occurring as sometimes I want something without any extra rules to remember, and while I know I can always just do that some players need it to be explicitly written out to be OK.

Peri: I was still right about map edge and Long Edge is better, it continues to be better. These missions are pretty playable and fun, and I am praying with all of my heart that tournaments just standardize on these missions instead of continuing to subject me to all of these deranged hand written nightmare missions I keep running into. A standard mission set is huge for BattleTech and will improve the game more than anything else in this playtest. Edge here is weird and some of the complications are a bit much, I really do think that we need a 40k style “Chilling Rain” where nothing actually happens, just to make people aware that you don’t need a weird map effect every game.

Playtest Conclusion

Jack: With what we know isn’t making it out of playtest (the side arc change), if everything else made it straight into the final rulebook I’d be happy. I’ve got a few minor quibbles, but nothing so significant that I’d feel any issues with running these packets (and in fact, almost all my local games and campaigns are using them). I can’t wait to see what the new core rulebook ends up looking like - I hope it does end up getting released at Gencon like was originally mentioned as the plan.

Lynn: As a Competitive Weirdo my main concerns with the rules update are questions of timing. It has been a long, long time since BattleTech has had to concern itself with tournament rules cutoffs the way Warhammer does, but this fall will probably see some awkwardness for events around the staggered release of the new rules and the BV update… not to mention the fact that the new book isn’t updating the full Battle Armor rules yet, which could have significant impact in the tournament scene if we see BA limited/banned more in response.

I’d love to see a digital release of the rules circa GenCon if the printed books aren’t available yet at that point, but that seems like too much to hope for.

Peri: If the Side Arc change is dead, everything in this playtest I am 100% cool with ending up in the new rulebook. AP ammo is perhaps a bit much but, fundamentally, it's still modifying a standard autocannon and those can only get so good. I am generally excited for the future of the game, and I genuinely cannot wait for the new rulebook.

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Tags: Battletech | mechwarrior | playtest