I’ve been in a BattleTech mood lately, so it should come as no surprise to anyone that in the last couple of months I’ve picked up a swag of BattleTech products. I’ve got them in a combination of hardcopy and pdf forms; pdfs for record sheets and OOP books (or ones I only really need a portion of), and hardcopy for the current rules and supplements.
The result of this is the following list of products:
- Total Warfare (320 pg hardcover – full combat rules for BTech).
- TechManual (320 pg hardcover – full construction rules)
- Wolf and Blake Starterbook (game campaign introduction to the Jihad storyline)
- Blake Ascending (compilation of the first two Jihad sourcebooks, including two campaigns for mercenary companies)
- Technical Readout 3039 (gives descriptions of the original mechs used – this product combines tech readouts 3025 & 3026 from the old days, although it doesn’t have the Unseen in it as I understand).
- Map Compilation 1
- Map Compilation 2 (between them, 40 BTech maps, 2 BForce maps and 4 Space maps)
- Tales of the Black Widow Company (pdf; a very old scenario book from the early days of BTech, dealing with a company of the famous Wolf’s Dragoons mercenaries).
- Field Manual: Mercenaries Revised (pdf; descriptions of mercenary companies in 3067 along with rules for running your own mercenary company).
- Record Sheets 3039 (pdf; 303 record sheets from the 3039 era of vehicles, mechs and aerospace forces).
- Record Sheets 3050U Inner Sphere (pdf; 212 mech record sheets from 3050).
- Record Sheets 3050U Clan & Star League (pdf; 311 mech, vehicle & aero record sheets from 3050)
- Record Sheets Phoenix Upgrades (pdf; 261 mech record sheets from all eras, displaying the “Unseen” mechs).
Yeah, that’s a few. No wonder I’m looking forward to my next game. I’ve really been struck by how fun the universe is; the first product in the Jihad storyline (Dawn of the Jihad; part of the Blake Ascending book) was exceptionally enjoyable reading. This isn’t my first dip into the BattleTech universe, but it’s my first view since the start of the Clan Invasion all those years ago.
I haven’t been completely neglecting other games in the meantime, although the interrupted D&D schedule (with Dungeon Delve delayed with printing problems) has meant that there aren’t many new D&D books; only Open Grave, which, while useful, isn’t that exciting. More exciting will be the PHB2 when that comes out next month; we’re all really waiting for that.
Boardgame-wise (and not BTech-wise), it’s been light in the last couple of months. I’ve picked up Modern Art by Reiner Knizia, which looks rather interesting – lots of different types of auctions – and the Reaper expansion for the revised 4th edition of Talisman. That’s really interesting to an old Talisman addict like me.
Most of the cards in the Reaper are versions of cards previously published during its 2nd edition days. What is surprising is how many of them there are; Fantasy Flight Games really gives you value for money.
In the basic Talisman set, there are 104 Adventure Cards. Reaper adds 90 more.
In the basic Talisman set, there are 24 Spell Cards. Reaper adds 26 more.
Reaper also adds 4 new characters, plus the Reaper himself – an additional character who wanders around the map possibly killing or helping your character. When you roll a 1 for your move, after you’ve had your turn you can move the Reaper. If he lands on someone, he might kill them outright or give them a wish… depending on what they roll. I’m hoping to get a game with the expansion sometime soon.
Of course, Cosmic Encounter and a few other purchases around Christmas haven’t had a good shakedown yet, and Randy has a lot of games we haven’t had a chance to play yet. With any luck, we’ll get a chance on Saturday.
However, given a choice between Cosmic Encounter and BattleTech, which would we play? I’ll have the latest scenario from the Sword & Dragon campaign ready for us to play, just in case…
Hi Merric!
Just wanna ask regarding the Talisman Reaper expansion, do you really really need the Fantasy Flight Games basic set (or “upgrade”) or will the Black Industries board work fine with it?
G’day, Charles!
You need the upgrade pack – FFG completely resized all of the cards, as well as added in a new mechanic (fate, allows rerolls).
That said, the upgrade pack rebalanced some of the characters and basically made it a much better game, so if you want the Reaper expansion, the upgrade pack is really worth it.
Cheers,
Merric
That is some nice swag. I just ordered the mapset myself. I was relying on a friend to provide maps for our games which left me a little high and dry when I played with anyone but him.
I’m working through the Wolf and Blake campaign right now myself.
-Brian
http://www.scrapyardarmory.com
I’m just amazed by the speed of the Locust in Wolf & Blake…
We’ll get to that campaign sooner or later – lots of Sword & Dragon left to go! 🙂
Nice webpage, btw.
Cheers,
Merric