Battletech had probably their biggest announcement since the invasion of the Clans on Tuesday with the announcement of new starter and core boxes and a new core rulebook including a wide range of rules updates. Jack already gave an overview of the new launches here, and now the rest of the team are weighing in with their thoughts.

Battletech Core Box, courtesy of Catalyst Game Labs

Core Box

Lynn: Blessed Blake, this is a stacked box! I think it’s really clever how the mechs selected cater to a range of different interests: the Mad Cat Mk. II and Uziel are here for the MechWarrior 4 faithful, the Vulture Mk. IV and Solitaire are recognizable from the ‘Clix game, the Eris and Regent are two of the biggest hits from the Recognition Guides, the Hollander was… in MechCommander… and I guess got a K’Nex kit for some reason, and the Rakshasa… look, I can’t remotely explain how the Rakshasa got here, but I’ve seen plenty of folks on Discord happy to see the Great Value Mad Cat get a spotlight like this!

If the sample forces break along Lyran / Sea Fox lines, I’m just a touch worried about the Solitaire running wild in early games for folks using this as an introductory product, as nothing else in the box can touch its speed, but I’m not hugely concerned. I’ll echo Jack from his initial post: People really can adjust to more involved rules faster than previous BattleTech introductory products have assumed, and out of this box, only the Vulture Mk. IV’s Ferro-Lameollar and possibly the heat calculations for the Eris and Uziel’s Partial Wing and iJJs are really a significant difference in functionality from lower-tech equipment. (Accuracy adjustments for Pulse and Heavy Lasers are simple, Streak missiles are conceptually simple, and things like Double Heat Sinks or ER Lasers literally just change the numbers but use the exact same mechanics as IntroTech weapons.)

Beyond the mechs, we’re doing a lot more guessing about what’s in the box. The components we see in the preview pics look good. I’m usually impressed by CGL’s punch-card tokens, the visual hit location charts look good, and what little we see of the maps looks passable. (Sparse, for the side with the road on it, but that’s to be expected for any “My First Battle Map” product, and the buildings visible on the punch-board sheet could offer more cover as needed.) The “Sagas” booklet may be the most intriguing element. We’re told that it’s easing back on the “historical infodump” aspect of the previous Primers and is instead aiming to connect new players with a faction and/or playstyle that appeals to them. That’s a tall order, but could make for a really fun product. I know I’m eager to see if whatever personality test it gives me sorts me correctly into the Free Worlds League!

Peri: 8 year old me is really happy about the inclusion of the Mad Cat MkII and Uziel, some very good MW4 mechs, a game I played far too much of as a kid. All the mechs in this box are iconic to the various early 2000s video games, or were at least present in them. Aside from the Rakshasa, but it direly needed a plastic model anyways just on the back of being a really interesting mech from both an in universe and out of universe perspective. Huge fan of the great value Mad Cat. The more advanced and involved rules here are totally fine, only Ferro-Lam is likely to give people pause because it has some unintuitive interactions around breakpoints but I firmly believe you could structure the rulebook in such a way to avoid tripping people up there.

I am mostly just glad to see a break from the 40 years ago version of the setting and an embrace of the new and cool part of the setting. The fact that most of these mechs are extremely good, high tier, lean and mean designs is also vaguely funny to me, because it means a lot of new players are going to get given some exceptionally strong mechs to use, and the idea of them terrorizing some locals full of 3025 mechs is vaguely funny to me. Its important to learn the game as it is currently played and constructed and this box will 100% give new players the tools to compete.

Lyran Guards Uziel -2S. Credit: Valk.

Valk: UZIEL UZIEL UZIEL UZIEL

Ahem. Sorry about that. I frankly love this box, for all of the obvious reasons (I grew up in the MW4/Clickytech era and make zero apologies for it), but beyond the nostalgia aspect, there’s a big thing here that isn’t getting the recognition that it should: the ‘Mechs are all weirdos.

This isn’t me saying they’re bad or unrecognizable. The Mad Cat Mk II was quite literally in the logo for MechWarrior Dark Age and the Uziel was on the cover of MechWarrior 4 Vengeance, so both of them are plenty well known. Similarly, the Regent and Eris have made previous appearances in some form or another on the tabletop to wide acclaim, due to being both aesthetically pleasing and great fighters on the tabletop. What I’m instead getting at is that these machines aren’t staples; unlike things like, say, the Wolverine or Catapult, these ‘Mechs very much aren’t ubiquitous to the point where wanting pairs or even full lances of them to run in an Alpha Strike game is a perfectly reasonable and/or lore-friendly thing to do for basically every faction in the game. Instead, they’re unique ‘Mechs that have a role to play, but you’re not nearly as incentivized to collect an army of them.

That’s an important decision on CGL’s part, I think. One of the things I’ve heard said more than a few times is that when BattleTech’s renaissance started proper in about 2020-2021ish as the Clan Invasion stuff started to hit shelves and people came out of COVID lockdowns, it could often be difficult to find copies of A Game of Armored Combat on shelves. On one hand, one could chalk this up to a combination of fresh demand from renewed interest catching stockists off-guard. On the other, there is frankly no shortage of long-time BT players who, lacking any other way to get more Locusts or Thunderbolts, would simply buy multiple copies of AGOAC when they were available, which in turn starved new players of their first copies. I am one such person, having purchased at least four copies of AGOAC since getting back into the series in 2020. Hell, I have an unused 40th anniversary AGOAC sitting in my closet right now as a sort of “For Emergency Catapult, Break Glass” thing.

The stock problem has mostly been alleviated, but it hasn’t removed the issue of “how the hell do I get another Locust, one of the most common ‘Mechs in the Inner Sphere, without having to assemble it, own a resin printer, or spend another $60 on another copy of the core box set?” By pushing the old AGOAC crew into more accessible (in theory) force packs and instead making the ‘Mechs in the Core Box a group of machines you’re less likely to want five or six of, the Core Box is being better positioned as a thing you buy once, which means there’s more to go around, and means it’ll be easier for new players to get into the game on a whim. For that reason alone, I very much approve.

…the plastic Uziel definitely helps solidify my opinion, though.

Liberty: GENERAL MOTORS PRODUCT DETECTED

I am FERAL at the presence of the Rakshasa. I will be buying more of them than may seem necessary. GMGM? A full lance. Marshals? A bonded pair. Lyrans? Donegal must have angry kitties.

All must stand ready for the anger of the Kirkland Timby.

This is a great addition and hopefully the proliferation of the Locust, and other standard line goobers present in the old AGOAC box, into the common pack groups is a big plus that will make my recent conversion bender very happy. Unlike my compatriots I will in fact be collecting armies of everything in this box because I need Rakshasas, Solitaires, Hollanders, Mad Cat MK.IIs, and Regents to live a fruitful life now that I can have them.

God I’m gonna build so many abominations and fun configs with these.

This entry also makes the marked advancement of leaving the Succession wars in the dust. Out with the old and in with the new brings the kind of ‘holy fuck that’s awesome’ go-turns that we know and love here at Goonhammer to the forefront of people picking up the game’s mind. IMO this change in pace should serve quite well to make people feel like something is happening in their opening games rather than the old ‘4 old boots being thrown aggressively at a wall, which one’s seams will bust first?’ that many intro-tech/succession wars fights can really be.

Battletech Starter Box, courtesy of Catalyst Game Labs

Starter Box

Lynn: This is the one place where I balk just a little bit at the tech choices for the intro products. The PSR modifiers on the Hammerhead aren’t the most intuitive (+1 from Hardened Armor and -2 from AES in the legs means a net -1 TN), and TSM heat can be complicated to juggle… but I’ve been reminded that the “First Mission” half-record-sheets are extremely simplified anyway, and in light of CGL’s other work around this rules revamp I’m cautiously optimistic that this Starter can ease new MechWarriors into the complexities of these rides with grace. Plus, the story behind these mechs’ selection (that Bryn Bills wanted to introduce kids to the game with a choice between Bear and Shark) is adorable! Fast-ish Medium Mechs definitely seem like a good starting point, regardless, and it’s easy to communicate the “cool” in this particular Unstoppable Force and Immovable Object.

Beyond the mechs, the token board is what interests me most in this preview pic. I’m very glad to see the Starter Set coming out of the gate with Objective tokens, presumably introducing the concept of games beyond kill missions very early. Seeing smoke tokens here, also, underlines this product’s confidence in getting new MechWarriors to stretch their wings in new directions fairly quickly.

Peri: Having the Hammerhead and the Kontio in a starter box is hilarious and a fantastic pairing. Having one durable, low damage, reasonably fast but slower mech and one high risk, high damage speedster as a contrasting pair is just cool as hell. In addition, the Hammerhead is probably the best medium mech in the game, and the Kontio will likely become one of the best medium mechs in the game with the new core rules changes. Once again, giving brand new players some of the best mechs in the game is hilarious and a great idea, it will give them the tools to actually play and win games, have fun, and kill something.

One of the issues with the old starter boxes is just that it takes forever for introtech mechs to actually kill each other, so skewing to a more high tech, high damage set is a fantastic idea for game speed and fun reasons. Griffin VS Wolverine, like the old version of the starter set, was a uniquely terrible pair of mechs to introduce people to the game with because of how easy it is to get stuck in a battle of constantly jumping and missing shots.

The new boxes having much higher damage output and leaner, meaner mechs is going to lead to a better new player experience of not spending a 5 hour game with only 2 mechs dead the way that introtech can end up.

Kontio, painted by Porble, image provided by Catalyst Game Labs

Valk: I’m a bit more torn on this one compared to the Core Box. The Hammerhead, as I mentioned in the Medium ‘Mech Championship Roundup, feels exceptionally boring to me. It’s a damn good ‘Mech, but it’s a very even-keeled, steady-as-she-goes sort of machine, not the sort of thing that excites easily. On the other side, you have the Chryssal–er, Kontio, which is hands down one of the best mediums in the game already and is just going to get better unless something drastic happens to Claws in the rules change like making you only able to use one hand at a time. It’s a hyper-optimized killing machine, and while the Hammerhead can tank a facepunch from it once, the Kontio has more than enough speed to get behind the Hammerhead and let fly every turn it wins initiative without any real fear of reprisal since all of the Hammerhead’s weapons are torso-mounted.

Granted, these tactics are a little more advanced than most new players will be picking up on in their first game, but the matchup does still seem a bit lopsided to me. Thankfully, the “First Mission” record sheet versions for both machines appear to do away with the fancier toys that make both machines so formidable in standard play, instead treating each as if they have standard armor and do not track heat. While I didn’t see the standard Starter Box “half-sheets,” I can only assume that the heat scale is still not present at minimum. Without those elements of the game, the Hammerhead is no longer the tankiest medium alive, and the Kontio isn’t a slasher villain, so the matchup becomes a lot more fun and fair. I’ll admit I’m a little concerned about what’s going to happen to the more general meta once the broader BattleTech community figures out how fast Kontios can just delete high BV machines with headcaps, but my doomsaying has been wrong before and I’m willing to play the wait-and-see game here given that Catalyst has obviously thought out the implications of including such efficient machines in the introductory box given how they dialed them back for intro play.

Liberty: As a starter box for people just dipping their toes in the aesthetic of the Kontio and Hammerhead are nothing short of perfect. While I’m a bit sad that I know these will fly off the shelves for a while for experienced players wanting the pair for their own tides of monstrosities, when things settle out these will do an excellent job of acting as a first introduction to the system and the fun that is throwing hands for the love of the game.

As Peri said, giving people some of the best tools at game start is a good thing and something that I hope continues as a trade-wind with big boxes going forward. Though my position may be colored by the fact that I think handing people tuned up lists and a few tips to use it with for them to unleash on their local meta so everyone has to deal with it and get better for it is incredibly fun.

Core Rules

Lynn: I’m always excited for new mechs in plastic, and it’s great for the game to see the onboarding process streamlined, but for my purposes, this is the main event of Adepticon’s announcements. I’m fantastically excited for what’s been previewed for this update. We knew to expect iterated-upon versions of most of the playtest changes rolling forward, but there’s an awful lot being rolled into this book that I never really expected to see in Core: Superheavies, Tripods, the Radical Heat Sink System, Supercooled Myomer, Acid SRMs, Quad BattleMech Turrets (Happy Sarath noises!), the list goes on. We even have a tease of two brand-new weapons in the form of Light and Heavy Plasma Rifles! Alongside a Discord quote from Assistant Line Developer Aaron Cahall confirming that the traditional rules levels (Introductory, Standard, Advanced, Experimental) are going away, this feels like a big commitment towards continuing to advance the tech levels in play on “modern” battlefields. I’m sympathetic to reservations players have about some technologies, but I’m excited to see the continued march of in-universe progress.

Aside from technological surprises, our initial look at upcoming Core Rules changes also includes a lot of nice little quality-of-life changes not previously announced: the elimination of a lot of easily-forgotten niche contextual penalties (I sure didn’t remember that each standing-up attempt currently generates an additional 1 heat!), standardization around equipment with escalating failure chances like MASC and RHSS (including a much gentler penalty for failing the MASC roll!), added convenience features (like being able to enter the battlefield with systems already turned off rather than waiting for the first end phase), and more. On the whole, I suspect that these changes will lead to a game where the ridiculous cascade failures we know and love BattleTech for are still entirely possible, but mechs are generally just a little more reliable and degrade in functioning a little more gracefully.

One of the most impactful revelations of this rules preview isn’t actually in the bullet-pointed list of rules changes, but in Xotl’s introduction: He expresses an intent to continue iterating on BattleTech’s rules through new rules publications at a more frequent cadence, the way things were done before Total Warfare, rather than the rule-by-errata that’s seen TW pick up 63 pages of alterations over the course of its twenty-year lifespan. I’m sure some ‘fans’ will hyperbolically extrapolate this to indicate a Games-Workshop-esque mayfly’s-lifespan for this rulebook, but that’s far from what’s being suggested. I very much welcome the intent to 1.) continue iterating on the solid-but-imperfect rules of a living, developing game, and 2.) communicate changes more clearly and visibly to players.

Peri: Core rules changes are basically all good; none of the awful shit from the playtest made it in. I am extremely interested to know exactly what MRM Apollo does now, and “Saturation Mode” particularly interests me on the name alone. For the most part Lynn summed up a lot of my thoughts here. Rules Updates on a schedule faster than “Every 20 years with badly tracked errata” is great, all the new stuff in the core book is great, the idea of the book being rewritten to not be the fucking cataclysmic mess that TW is is great, just a lot of good being done here.

Valk: I will admit I have not been tracking the playtest and resulting changes as closely as the rest of the team, as life circumstances have put me in a very long drought of BattleTech games recently and I’ve had little time to review changes in full. However, those that I have seen seem to patch a lot of old holes that have long needed filling, while also making other elements a bit more approachable. Things like making UACs no longer jam and heavy Gauss rifles no longer carry a fall risk feel a bit weird to me given their long-standing descriptions in the lore, but when considered against factors like the UAC being treated as if it fires twice every turn when calculating for BV, a thing that I have literally never seen anyone do, it does feel more player-friendly even if it’s less lore-friendly. Fixing water so that it’s no longer a death trap ~~and making partial cover work similar to how Level 2 adjacency works (i.e., you’re treated as tucked into the foot of the hill, so LOS is blocked no matter how much higher up the shooter is)~~ are also big changes that feel natural and help make a lot of maps (especially those in Map Pack: Savannahs) much more usable than they were before.

That being said, I do hope that future updates of supplementary books, i.e., the replacements for the non-’Mech components of Total Warfare and Tactical Operations in its entirety, re-integrate some of the more risky elements of the game that are being smoothed out here as optional rules. To me, BattleTech is largely a game of risk management, so taking it out in any capacity feels a little questionable at first glance, even if it makes my beloved heavy Gausses so much better. But, as with the Starter Box, I trust that Xotl’s team knows what they’re doing, and with the more…egregious…parts of the playtest removed (cough deleted side tables cough), I get the feeling the new rules and I will get along just fine. It’s also not as if the rules haven’t gotten updates in the past – ask any BT player from the FASA days how they used to feel about Partial Cover.

EDIT: Speaking of Partial Cover, Xotl just revealed that the rules team is doing a last-minute removal of the change to Partial Cover that was slated for inclusion in the rules update, which I have mixed feelings about, but feels like a good demonstration of the commitment his team has towards making the game the best it can be.

As an aside, whoever decided to reverse the punch table so it now goes right to left like every other table in this damn game needs to identify themselves so I can buy them a beer at Adepticon next year.

Liberty: Peri sums my thoughts up quite succinctly. Everything here is good and I’m quite pleased with it. The fact that the bad options from the playtest are missing is the kind of thing that makes me quite happy. Can’t wait to start playing with these!

Ghost Bear Kodiak. Credit: Jack Hunter

Snowblind

Lynn: Adepticon also saw some more details revealed for the next Aces box for Alpha Strike, the Dominion-Civil-War-themed Snowblind. Our crew leans more Classic-oriented, but I still think this is an extremely cool product for CGL to be putting out, and obviously everyone benefits (or suffers, in the case of Viking IIC proliferation) from the new miniatures. I haven’t personally gotten my copy of Scouring Sands to table (or floor…) for its intended purpose yet, but the hints we have at the Snowblind campaign have me intrigued. On the heels of Star-Crossed Warriors, the presence of civilian crowd cards/tokens in Snowblind is ominous, and I suspect the box will offer ethical challenges beyond the norm for solo/co-op gaming, with greater weight and nuance than the “heh, warcrimes” attitude that pops up in BT fandom sometimes. We also know the campaign book that comes with this one is longer than the one packed with Scouring Sands, with an expansion of Rusty Zimmerman’s frame narrative content given as the reason. This is a gaming experience I think I’ll prioritize, regardless of my feelings on Alpha Strike in general.

Valk: WHY DO ALL THE GRENDEL SCULPTS POINT THE MAIN GUN AT THE GROUND AAAAAAAAA

With that pet peeve aside, Aces was a surprise to me as someone who is primarily a Classic player, giving me a rediscovered appreciation of Alpha Strike as a system (and a realization that my apprehension towards it is 50% “I like complexity” and 50% “the biggest AS players in my old AO were horrible people”). I picked up Scouring Sands at launch and was caught off-guard by how much I enjoyed both the co-op/solo nature of the system and the “choose-your-own-adventure” vibes it gave off as I got deeper and deeper into the campaign’s decision branches. Snowblind’s civil war theme seems poised to give me more moral and strategic quandaries to consider, especially since I spotted cards for both “peaceful” and “angry” civilian mobs in the display case.

Model-wise, this is very much the “Oops! All Clan LRMs!” box. Everyone’s aware of the Viking IIC and its…quirks, but the inclusion of the Nova Cat B is also notable. My suggestion for anyone concerned about this Aces box causing proliferation of these designs in Classic is to brush up on battle armor rules. The Viking IIC is hard to kill, but if you can get some Elementals or Salamanders on him, they’re probably not coming off until he’s dead.

A pair of Visigoth fighter jets, painted green with yellow trim.

Visigoth OmniFighters. Credit: Valk

Aerospace

Lynn: CGL’s teases of what’s coming up for Aerospace remain somewhat nebulous, but details are starting to firm up. We know to expect Force Packs somewhat analogous to what we saw with combat vehicles, with three designs per box and two planes of each design. Indications are that they’ll be grouped along faction lines, with the initial trio of prototypes revealed at Adepticon, the Chippewa, Lucifer, and Seydlitz, being the Lyran-skewed Heavy, Medium, and Light fighters from TRO: 3025 (recently redesigned for its “Centennial” release). We also know that a closed alpha for revised rules has taken place already, with plans for an open beta prooobably later this year.

I’ve seen secondhand reporting on some statements from Ray Arrastia indicating that his goal for aerospace is to see it stand on its own as a gaming experience. It certainly feels to me like there ought to be open market share for a game that scratches the dogfighting itch, with support for X-Wing and Aeronautica Imperialis having been discontinued in recent years, but it remains to be seen how effectively BattleTech Aerospace can win over existing fans, much less draw in new players. I’m hopeful that a strong, clearly-communicated system can and will make a case for itself, but I suspect that selling aerospace will be a serious marketing challenge. Time will tell.

Valk: Confession time: despite being a legendary Ace Combat fangirl, I’ve never bothered to learn BattleTech’s aerospace rules, and my ability to play BattleTech locally with experienced players has been sufficiently limited in the last year that I wasn’t able to participate in the Aerospace Support playtest. My understanding of what to expect with the revised AeroTech (or whatever it ends up being called) release is thus very limited aside from “it’s coming, probably,” which felt fairly obvious since the release of TRO: 3025 Centennial, which included visual refreshes of the entire line. The reveal of the first pack being the Lyran aero lineup from this book suggests that future packs will follow the same pattern.

Ray’s comments on aero being a “standalone” experience are a positive in my book. I love fighter jets, real or fictional, but I’ve long since developed an apprehension/irritation towards the sort of people who go “well I would just bring a wing of fighters to bomb your force and win” whenever you get into the weeds about the quality of a ‘Mech or ground force. ‘Mechs are the stars of BattleTech and there’s never been any question about it; every attempt to make it more “realistic” and make infantry/armor/air more lethal and cost-efficient has felt like people were trying to turn the game into something it isn’t. As Lynn mentioned, there’s currently a gap in the wargaming space for air combat games, so “splitting off” full rules AeroTech into its own dogfighting game feels like a natural move to keep BattleTech‘Mech-focused as well as take advantage of the current state of the market. There’s certainly demand – Blaster Magazine’s booth had models for a modern air combat X-Wing-like called “Bandit” at their booth – so if there was ever an opportunity for Catalyst to seize the niche, it’s now.

Map Packs

Lynn: This part isn’t a reveal or announcement, but a release: early stock of the “Volcanic” and “Glacier” Map Packs were sold at Adepticon. Valk can speak more completely on this, since she actually picked them both up, but I’ve seen enough details of the maps from both packs to have… reservations about them, putting it mildly. I honestly don’t think every map product from CGL needs to be Balanced For Competitive Tournament Play or whatever you might expect from some of my tournament-report complaining… I’m happy the Tukayyid maps exist for campaign usage, for instance… but these sets in particular seem to have issues with navigability and lack of cover which will render most of their mapsheets inhospitable to all but the most comprehensively-themed campaign set pieces. I feel like there should’ve been space for an approach similar to Map Pack: Deserts, which mixed more narrative-setpiece locales like the Aerobase and Mines maps with more pickup-game-friendly maps like Sand Drift and Washout. Something like “Tundra but colder” could’ve fit perfectly fine into the Glacier theming, for instance.

I am making an active effort to reach a “this product just isn’t for me, and that’s okay” place with these Map Packs, but I really hope that we do see another pickup-game-friendly map release sometime next year, particularly with the new Core Rules codifying a recommended pickup game structure.

Jack: Like Lynn, I don’t think every map product needs to be completely balanced for tournament or pickup game play. That said, I’m disappointed that it looks like none of these maps are suitable for that kind of play. While ice isn’t particularly bad to deal with, the maps don’t look like they have very much cover or even block sight lines particularly well. The fire maps, on the other hand, do look like they have a fair few trees – but mobility through magma is a Bad Idea that severely limits play, and is going to cause some pretty significant advantages depending on which side you’re starting on.

I’m OK with the concept of making highly themed narrative map packs, mostly for specific campaigns or other story heavy games. But when you’re putting out an entire pack I’d really like to see one or two sets of maps that produce a game that’s balanced regardless of which side you start on, has enough cover and elevation to limit sight lines and create interesting movement, and doesn’t require advanced knowledge that you’ll be playing on it to be able to have a good time. I don’t think that’s going to significantly impact how cool you can make the full pack or BFM.

Valk: I’m planning on doing a more thorough review of these map packs once they fall out of my mailbox (I had to ship them back home to keep my carry-on from being completely stuffed to the gills), but my initial impressions are…mixed. I like having a lot of maps for BattleTech, and I like having maps that might not be entirely easy to play on, especially when used in the context of a narrative game. Unfortunately, those maps don’t get as much use in the rotation, which makes them a less-appealing option for casual/competitive players.

These new maps are gorgeous, but they feel like they firmly fall into this “narrative use only” category, with there being very little cover in both maps beyond elevation shifts that can be used as partial cover, and, as expected, large amounts of difficult/damaging terrain. The rules inserts include punch-outs to modify the terrain a bit, as well as the relevant sections of TacOps to try and reduce the number of books you’ll need to take with you, but magma hexes don’t suck any less just because you have the rules on hand. Navigability isn’t as bad as it looks at first glance, but given that my “first glance” impressions were “have jump jets or die lol,” that’s not a huge improvement. The maps as a whole can be put together to create a single large map that’s probably great for large ( i.e., company-scale) games, but given that these maps are single-sided, that means you’d have to buy two sets of them to do it, and the resulting “map scenario” feels much more limiting than, say, the AeroBase set from Map Pack: Deserts. At that point, it may even just be cheaper to buy the associated BFM, shipping costs be damned, since you’d get both biomes on opposite sides of one mat.

Ultimately, these feel like a more niche product than most of the other Map Packs released thus far, especially compared to Grasslands, Deserts, City, and (to a lesser extent) Savannahs. I’d have rather seen a “Grasslands but Snowy” tundra Map Pack that’s more usable in more contexts, so here’s hoping something like that is in the pipeline for next year.

Davion Heavy Guards Regent. Credit: Jack Hunter

What does this mean for BattleTech?

Lynn: Every single aspect of these announcements, every step of this refresh, seems to be a commitment to looking forward. CGL is acting to nudge the player base, new and old, towards the current era, towards streamlined rules covering a broader swathe of game’s mechs, and away from stagnation in the real-world or in-setting past. The usual Gaslight, Gatekeep, Grognard crowd will, naturally, declare that modern BattleTech, arguably at the apex of its popularity as far as the Classic tabletop game is concerned, is somehow dying a death of Wokeness, but what I’m seeing is a convincing strategy for continued growth, and I am 100% here for it.

Now if the global economy can only stop imploding so we can get all these new products more quickly/cheaply…

Peri: What this means is that the new player experience will likely get a lot smoother and better, they will have access to lean, high tech tournament threat mechs straight out of the starter box, and IlClan play is likely to be more normalized which is a very good thing, it is far and away the most mechanically diverse and fun way to play the game. A lot of really annoying old grogs online are going to complain about this being pandering/woke/turning into GW (Because clearly taking any cues from the most successful wargame on earth is a bad thing) but those folk are both not a majority and also don’t spend money on this game anyways.

Also, plastic Uziel! I don’t really care about anything else there is a plastic Uziel! Fuck yeah, Uziel!

Valk: While I probably have a few more reservations about some decisions and/or changes happening here than most of the GH BattleTech crew, I am still overall very positive about the line refresh as a whole. The old eras are still there for those who want to play them (and I have no doubt people will do so), but being shy about the bleeding edge of your product has never been a successful long-term business strategy for anyone, so I’m glad to see the ilClan era being fully embraced, especially after I realized it was the soft reset to the Succession Wars (an era ripe for making and playing Your Dudes™ that no following era has really successfully emulated) that Dark Age was originally trying to be. Some grogs will complain that the Core Box is full of ‘Mechs that they’ve never seen anyone using and that their inclusion here is a bad decision because of that, but those people are stupid. Yeah, nobody uses these ‘Mechs right now, because almost all of them were only available as either incredibly dated metal models or hard-to-assemble metal models that cost half the price of a force pack. How did they expect people to treat those designs?

The new models are great, the revised design focus promoting objective-based play is great, and Xotl’s “refuse no criticism” attitude has been great. I had a lot of respect for the guy before, and finding out his team was reading 4chan’s BattleTech threads on the playtest changes to ensure nobody was holding anything back with their feedback earned them a hell of a lot more. He and his team know what they’re doing, and if they were doing something that really sucked, someone would’ve told them how bad it sucked and exactly why it sucked already, and he’d have taken it out so it would stop sucking (again, thank god the side hit tables were left untouched). I think we’re in good hands.

Liberty: It means we’re about to get a lot of new players who have a grand time throwing hand the fast way. None of these are bad changes, none of these are bad choices, none of these are a bad direction. Bringing the IlClan to the forefront is good and should help to draw everyone into the same world, making pickup games when not at home just that little bit easier!

Now I just have to moderate myself around restock day at my LGS so I actually leave enough for everyone else.

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