New BattleTech stuff

While we’re still waiting for the 25th Anniversary Intro Boxed Set (soon to be retitled the “26th Anniversary” set…) and my BT campaigns are currently in a lull, Catalyst Labs haven’t stopped releasing new and old material.

Mostly this has been in PDF. I’m growing very fond of pdf BattleTech books. Whilst I wouldn’t want to have the core rulebooks purely in PDF, for scenario packs and (especially) record sheets, there’s a real advantage in having them in electronic format. Being able to print out the sheets when I need them is just brilliant.

Anyway, here are a few highlights:

TW Style Record Sheets 3060 Unabridged

Hmm. 311 pages. US$9.95. That’s a lot of record sheets. This is rather nice just because they’ve included a lot of variant mech designs that aren’t in the matching Technical Readout (TRO). It also sees the first time they’ve arranged sheets in the order in which they appear in the TRO. I’m not entirely convinced this is a good idea; in general, I get Mechs from a different source than the TRO (such as a scenario book) and then I work on name and tonnage.

The best bit about these sheets is how it presents the vehicles: each on a separate page, and with several of the relevant tables reproduced on the sheet. This will make vehicles so much easier to run in our BT games; not that we use that many of them at present.

The worst thing about the sheets is the distribution of armour circles on the Mech: quite frankly, they suck badly. They’re in odd positions, some of them bleed into each other, and they’re unattractive. I know they’re created by a computer program, but I wrote my own and it distributed the circles better than this.

Historical: Operation Klondike

I haven’t actually picked this one up yet, because I like to have the Historical books in hand when I read them – generally, large slabs of entertaining text need to be in a book for me to read, as opposed to short scenario descriptions like in the Turning Points series. However, this is one that Nash will probably be interested in. Here’s the summary:

In the wake of the Star League’s collapse, Aleksandr Kerensky led the bulk of the SLDF into deep space to escape the inevitable Succession Wars. But war soon came to the “Star League in Exile” anyway, prompting General Kerensky’s son Nicholas to form a new society, based on the principles of honor and strength. Fifteen years later, the newborn Clans were unleashed against those who abandoned Kerensky’s vision.

Historical: Operation Klondike details the actions of the epic first campaign waged by Nicholas Kerensky’s newborn Clans. Identifying all of the founding Clans and their warriors, this book provides a hard look at the nature of early Clan formation, with new units and campaign rules that enable players to replay these critical battles for the Pentagon Worlds.

So, good fun for very early Clan action. The Historical books have generally shied away from giving scenarios as you find in the Starterbooks and TP series, but they give you the outline of a conflict if you want to set up scenarios in it. Oh, and new mechs, tech and stuff.

Experimental Technical Readout: Mercs

Experimental Technical Readout: Pirates

More fun – let’s take 3075 experimental tech from Tactical Operations, and create some Mechs and vehicles with them. So, TRO sheets and record sheets. Exactly how useful they are is up for debate. For me, they’re sort of interesting fluff and not much else at present – especially as I’m currently running 3048 missions and the next lot are likely to be early clan invasion tech.

McCarron’s Armored Cavalry

The Dragon Roars

Old FASA Scenario books. How old? The first is 1992, so nearly twenty years. (Incredibly how 1992 now seems so long ago). McCarron’s Armored Cavalry has 15 scenarios set in 3044. The Dragon Roars (1998) has 12 scenarios set in 3059. (Duke Kai Allard-Liao appears in it. Woo – Gunnery & Piloting scores of 0!)

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Reviews and Play Advice for Dungeons & Dragons

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