So, after much thought (while I paint my battleships for Victory at Sea) I decided to do a quick review of the most recent rules for Battletech.
Now, the game has alot of deep background story without having the background stroy dominate the game. This is a great feat that other game systems have tried and failed to accomplish (the original Dragonlance is a good example of this). With hundreds of worlds and dozens of factions you have so many choices that its hard to choose between any one faction.
The factions themselves are divided into two camps. The Clans and the Inner Sphere.
The Clans are litterally a losely aligned group of military dictatorships that have a single objective in mind (at least the Crusader clans anyway), the conquest of Earth and the complete subjugation of the inner sphere.
The Innersphere is divided into 5 major powers and 10 or more lesser powers. Each "House" is ruled by a fudal style goverment that maintains a very tenuous hold over the worlds under their dominions and the only two things that prevent them from breaking out into civil war is military might and fear of there neighbours/the Clans. While the Lyran Alliance and Federated Suns (former Federated Commonwealth states) are portrayed as the "good guys" they have also been known for their own problems.
So to the game itself.
You have two options when you are choosing your force. You can just pick and choose your units using whatever criteria (if any) you choose, or you can mold your force into forces from a particular faction of your choosing. (I personally choose the Hell's Horses and 1st Summerset Strikers). Mechs (battlemechs or Omni mechs) are the unit of choice in this game. Other units are either two ungainly or have severe penalties to make them too useful.
Mechs very from small fast attack mech's (Dasher/Firemoth) to heavy hard hitting 100 ton monsters (Atlas). What ever your choice, these are the powerhouse forces at your disposal and other forces serve to simply weaken your force.
Which brings me to my next point. Other then Battle Armour, all other forces are nearly useless. Infantry are either to slow to be of use or when they can get into possition there are weapons that will destroy the entire unit in one hit (flamers). To make matters worse, there is a rule that doubles all damage a conventional infantry unit recieves while out side of rough or wooded terrain. They also can not cross water (no matter how shallow).
Tanks have potential, except that you can destroy or immobilize and vechile by getting just a single hit. There are so many ways to get critical hits on combat vehicles that they are impotent. Now I understand and think it is fair that if any side is destroyed the vehicle is destroyed. However the HUGE bonuses an attacker gets to deal motive system damage makes the entire concept of mobile warfare pointless.
Now the final subject at hand is fighters. There is no practicle rules for the use of air power. You need 9 combat maps to utilize air power with the current rules. This is simply impracticle as 4 maps will often fill a 4'x6' table.
Now the game unto itself is fun and I understand the focus of the game is the battlemech (or Omni Mech if you play clans) but it seems rather pathetic that you need to weaken or penalize the use of other kinds of units. Its just not necessary. Warhammer 40k is about space marines, but there is still other armies that are just as competative.
My next problem is with the massive points costs. A Mad Cat (probably one of the most iconic units in the game) costs 3000+ points. Huge numbers like this are simply unneccessary and serve to complicate the game.
The game can also take a significant amount of time if your are using more then one or two mechs. Fortunately if you want to get into really big (and thus more tactically flexible) games you can use the Battleforce two rules which drop the points cost to something more managible and gives the mechs a smaller amount of stability. I personally like the idea of this system. It allows you to bring out all of your toys and still play the game in a reasonable amount of time.
Unfortunately for the primary game there are over a dozen tables and references that you need to play the game and those who are just starting will need to have plenty of time to play the first few games until you get the hang of it. Other wise, for those willing to look past its draw backs the game will give you hours of enjoyment every week (or day for those who are hardcore fans).
Now, the game has alot of deep background story without having the background stroy dominate the game. This is a great feat that other game systems have tried and failed to accomplish (the original Dragonlance is a good example of this). With hundreds of worlds and dozens of factions you have so many choices that its hard to choose between any one faction.
The factions themselves are divided into two camps. The Clans and the Inner Sphere.
The Clans are litterally a losely aligned group of military dictatorships that have a single objective in mind (at least the Crusader clans anyway), the conquest of Earth and the complete subjugation of the inner sphere.
The Innersphere is divided into 5 major powers and 10 or more lesser powers. Each "House" is ruled by a fudal style goverment that maintains a very tenuous hold over the worlds under their dominions and the only two things that prevent them from breaking out into civil war is military might and fear of there neighbours/the Clans. While the Lyran Alliance and Federated Suns (former Federated Commonwealth states) are portrayed as the "good guys" they have also been known for their own problems.
So to the game itself.
You have two options when you are choosing your force. You can just pick and choose your units using whatever criteria (if any) you choose, or you can mold your force into forces from a particular faction of your choosing. (I personally choose the Hell's Horses and 1st Summerset Strikers). Mechs (battlemechs or Omni mechs) are the unit of choice in this game. Other units are either two ungainly or have severe penalties to make them too useful.
Mechs very from small fast attack mech's (Dasher/Firemoth) to heavy hard hitting 100 ton monsters (Atlas). What ever your choice, these are the powerhouse forces at your disposal and other forces serve to simply weaken your force.
Which brings me to my next point. Other then Battle Armour, all other forces are nearly useless. Infantry are either to slow to be of use or when they can get into possition there are weapons that will destroy the entire unit in one hit (flamers). To make matters worse, there is a rule that doubles all damage a conventional infantry unit recieves while out side of rough or wooded terrain. They also can not cross water (no matter how shallow).
Tanks have potential, except that you can destroy or immobilize and vechile by getting just a single hit. There are so many ways to get critical hits on combat vehicles that they are impotent. Now I understand and think it is fair that if any side is destroyed the vehicle is destroyed. However the HUGE bonuses an attacker gets to deal motive system damage makes the entire concept of mobile warfare pointless.
Now the final subject at hand is fighters. There is no practicle rules for the use of air power. You need 9 combat maps to utilize air power with the current rules. This is simply impracticle as 4 maps will often fill a 4'x6' table.
Now the game unto itself is fun and I understand the focus of the game is the battlemech (or Omni Mech if you play clans) but it seems rather pathetic that you need to weaken or penalize the use of other kinds of units. Its just not necessary. Warhammer 40k is about space marines, but there is still other armies that are just as competative.
My next problem is with the massive points costs. A Mad Cat (probably one of the most iconic units in the game) costs 3000+ points. Huge numbers like this are simply unneccessary and serve to complicate the game.
The game can also take a significant amount of time if your are using more then one or two mechs. Fortunately if you want to get into really big (and thus more tactically flexible) games you can use the Battleforce two rules which drop the points cost to something more managible and gives the mechs a smaller amount of stability. I personally like the idea of this system. It allows you to bring out all of your toys and still play the game in a reasonable amount of time.
Unfortunately for the primary game there are over a dozen tables and references that you need to play the game and those who are just starting will need to have plenty of time to play the first few games until you get the hang of it. Other wise, for those willing to look past its draw backs the game will give you hours of enjoyment every week (or day for those who are hardcore fans).
