So, here’s the first bit to talk about: Maintenance and Updates, otherwise known as “the things you do between missions”.

It’s likely quite a bit has already been noted by BattleTech players (and posted about on boards and things). I may have even read those and incorporated the suggestions into this post. Thank you to everyone who has helped me – I hope this can help others in turn.

The S&D campaign assumes you can sell units for an “Average Unit Cost”; it’s not half-cost (as in the Chaos Campaign). It basically works fine… except in a couple of corner cases, involving light and medium ‘mechs. The trouble with using an average and then selling for full value is that there will be ‘mechs you can buy cheaper and then sell for a profit. Oops. This isn’t “TechTraders”.

The solution to this is to make sure you can’t turn a profit purely through buying and selling. Two options present themselves; the Chaos Campaign 1/2 value, or adjusting the value of sold mechs. To keep the intention of the original S&D campaign, I’m using instead a “Low Unit Cost”, which is the value of the lowest ‘Mech in each category.

This changes the values for Light mechs (90 -> 75 WP) and Medium Mechs (120->100 WP).

Mostly the repair rules work and there’s not much to be said about them. They’re simple and they work – good things to have. One odd note is that any unit that is repaired “has empty ammo bins and must purchase ammunition separately” (S&D pg 63). I can’t see the sense in this; for the campaign I assume that they keep what ammo they finished the mission with. Restocking ammo to full costs, though.

One of the rare typographical errors I’ve found, mostly because it occurs in a heading. Supply refers to purchasing ammunition and recruiting pilots. I’ve no problems with the ammunition rules; Pilot Recruitment is a bit more problematical, due to the ability to recruit Elite (P3 G2) pilots. New pilots have two things against them: they don’t have all the history and quirks of the existing pilots, and you can get a number of very good pilots through this system.

At present it hasn’t caused a problem; to be fair, we’ve only just started and have done a mere 3 or 4 tracks for each side. As a House Rule, I’m tempted to allow the purchase of only Green (or possibly Regular) pilots using this system; further levels available through advancement.

“Between tracks, players may use their WP to increase personnel experience” (S&D pg 62). Interestingly, there’s no further mention of it in the track. It does appear in the Chaos Campaign rules, although not in a form that is directly transferrable. When I first began the campaign, I used the regular XP rules from the Intro Box Set (also in Total Warfare): 1 XP for each mission participated in with a bonus XP for one pilot, 4 XP to improve Piloting and 8 XP to improve piloting.

Then, in a fit of “let’s put an advanced rule in” madness, I adapted the Chaos Campaign method for the campaign: 6 WP to improve Piloting, 8 WP to improve Gunnery, double if the pilot didn’t participate in the last track.

It was a disaster. Every participating Sabre pilot increased their abilities, the result of which was Daniel Sorenson with a Pilot and Gunnery score of 1 each. This was just too good, as we discovered in the next mission. I fled back screaming to the regular TW/Intro XP system, and that’s where we’re staying. (I’d like to know how the advancement system works in the Chaos Campaign – is it better balanced?)

Nothing problematic here that I can see; not that we’ve used the rules yet. Notable is that you can mix freezers with regular heat sinks for these designs, but it’s all prototype so that’s ok. 🙂 I’ve got an updated Wolfhound I want to buy, but that’ll have to wait until I have the WP.

That’s it for the Maintenance and Update rules so far. I’ll look at the mission tracks next.