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u/Remove_soy Mar 17 '26
There are Battletech fans today who weren’t alive when the Jihad/Dark Age controversy began.
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u/rukeen2 Look, I took the C3i out, what else do you want? Mar 17 '26
As a relatively new player, I adore the Blakist Jihad. They make such great bad guys for narrative games.
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Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
Yeah, CGL has done as well as could be reasonably expected with those eras--which were originally developed with little warning, as background information. As I understand it, it was basically just like "Comstar was evil now, see their goatee? Because ah, well goatees make you evil so... We're not going to explain what happened. Anyway, we're taking most of the mechs away, killing a bunch of your favorite characters, and Mysterious Things are occurring with no plan for their resolution. Wait, what do you mean we're losing the IP?"
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u/1877KlownsForKids Blessed Blake Mar 17 '26
Oh they were evil under FASA, but they didn't turn genocidal until the Jihad.
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u/wittyjokename92 Mar 17 '26
Blakists were always planned for something bigger. Just not Jihad levels. Rough outline was blakists would do something big to upset the second star league and Tukkayid truce expiring and the end of the Fedcom civil war fracturing both halves of the state. Just right as they were getting the writers together to lay out the next 2 years of the game FASA went belly up so they had nothing more than an outline for Topps and Wizkids to go off of.
Easiest and cheapest solution was just split the narrative between a skeleton crew at Topps writing for the Jihad and Wizkids removing anything that could be considered royalties or credited so they could smash heroclix into the setting. Plus a bunch of rights issues with FASA being carved up made it impossible for the different companies to coordinate and coexist beyond a couple agreements with certain new Mechs and characters getting back ported into sourcebooks while lore was written about in the past tense in newer novels.
Honestly all things considered it's amazing how good everything turned out despite the massive obstacles involved
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Mar 17 '26
Totally fair, I suppose it was inaccurate to say no plan. But it was such a footnote despite being a massive shakeup of the setting, with no exposition of its own at the time. Just "that happened like 60 years ago for some reason, lets move on," it feels like there wasn't a clear plan of what actually did occur, how and why in any greater detail than the broadest strokes.
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u/wittyjokename92 Mar 17 '26
Oh yeah it was literally just a rough outline of the clans having a 3 way war between themselves, Lyran space fracturing, Federated Suns getting invaded by Liao and Draconis forces at the same time. And the WOB doing something against everyone while the second star league was in a failed state situation.
Wizkids said let's skip 70 years and write all new characters and factions and Mechs so we only have to pay the smallest amounts of royalties and credit to older writers and artists. Topps couldn't write any novels and only do source books so they very quickly tried to write about the Jihad after the novels and click tech had established it being a massive war that killed everyone except Victor Davion. And then having to rewrite certain events as books were heading to the printers when Wizkids would bring someone back to life.
Loren Coleman talked about it years ago but basically all the writers were talking together and working on how to make it work while the big wigs that owned the franchise in pieces kept demanding impossible changes.
The team at Microsoft basically wrote a whole Mercenaries style campaign for the Jihad with help from the other companies only to find out Microsoft was shutting down the studio and cancelling all MechWarrior games before hiring a team to make the planned game for the Nintendo DS and ignored anything that was written by anyone else except the basic information from Mechassualt
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u/forcehighfive Mar 18 '26
As someone who stopped reading Battletech novels in the early 2000s, I was wondering what the hell happened when I started seeing all the Jihad and Republic of Inner Sphere shit. Thank you for finally giving me the IRL reason for the sudden narrative shift
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u/zystyl Mar 17 '26
The novels were pretty good for light reading.
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u/wittyjokename92 Mar 17 '26
For sure. Basically just kept the same writers from before and changed their management and got rid of the summits they did every other year to plan ahead. Really the dedication of the writers themselves to coordinate with each other rather than doing a lot of their own things like Black Library does for their authors.
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u/DM_Voice Mar 17 '26
“Comstar is evil now”?
So… 3000?
Oh, wait. You just mean the difference between normal evil Comstar and evil evil Comstar.
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u/HotShirt2766 Mar 18 '26
If I've learned anything lately it's that the difference between lawful evil and chaotic evil becomes really evident real quick IRL.
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u/UnsanctionedPartList 3000 Black Stukas of Hanse Davion. Mar 17 '26
Google Operation Holy Shroud
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u/HueHue-BR Nuclear Paranoid (Taurian) Mar 18 '26
I'm going to be honest, if ComStar had stopped to think once and made sure to kill only the military research wing, a lot of people would actually have taken their side
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Mar 17 '26
Sure, that's arguably evil. But not at all the same as the wobbies going mad with no real justification (at the time when Jihad released) and concluding that for some reason they should burn everything to the ground.
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u/__Geg__ Mar 18 '26
The ComStar going full, mask off evil, had been telegraphed since the beginning. They were actively trying to take control during the Clan Invasion. FASA had a whole novel about how the Word of Blake was building an army in Marik space.
You have the sequence of events wrong.
The classic team lost the IP, and had write the era like Fan Fiction authors and only use facts and events established by others, and do it with no more than a short blurb of fiction.
And as for characters dying.
WizKids kill them all with the time jump and their apocalyptic war. All that was left was for FanPro/CGL to share how everyone's story ended.
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u/MadCatMkV Green Ghosts Mar 17 '26
killing a bunch of your favorite characters,
I don't get how people can get so attached to fictional characters. Like, just get a new favorite one, they are all imaginary. Also, I rather have a dead but interesting character than an alive but boring one (and I'm talking about every Steiner-Davion ever written, including Alaric)
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u/Academic-Bakers- Mar 17 '26
For me it's not that characters died, it's that they were needlessly killed stupidly.
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u/TheOtherOtherViper Clan Magical Liopleurodon Mar 18 '26
Exactly, they were always going to die, they were getting old anyway. But they didn't need to die in extremely boring/vague/stupid ways, and they really didn't need to die in the fucking footnotes. At least give them a short story or something, damn.
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u/snowysnowy Mar 18 '26
I'm doing a first read through of all the novels (only read a novel here and there when I could afford it when I was younger) and I just cleared the part about how Grayson Death Carlyle and GDL pretty much evaporated in a single book. I'm a little annoyed to say the least.
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u/Gammelpreiss Mar 17 '26
found the sociopath.
ok seriously, getting attached to characters is entirely normal, you won't change human nature with a couple words
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Mar 17 '26
Why have a favorite anything?
But it was more how it was done. Jihad was not released as an actual story itself, but as an offscreen event in the past. So the fan-facing story basically went from Civil War straight to Dark Age.
And in doing that a bunch of characters and factions died offscreen and it was just like "anyway comstar turned evil when you weren't looking, everyone you know is dead, here are a bunch of random idiots. Also there are hardly any mechs now."
And people didn't like that. I think it makes perfect sense. It's less that "my favorite boy died and now I hate this," it's more like "everyone you knew in the setting is dead with no explanation or actual story about that." People enjoy following stories. It's pretty understandable to be annoyed when a story replaces all the characters in an offscreen flashback that barely gets fleshed out until many years later. How did any of that even happen? Who cares, you like IndustrialMechs, right?
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u/CrashUser Mar 18 '26
The Dark Age thing with Wizkids was probably more about not intimidating new fans with the giant backlog of existing lore and giving a clean entry point to go with the new game. I don't think Weisman was trying to convert old Battletech players to clickytech, he was looking to get new younger players interested in the franchise, thus the simpler ruleset and game.
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Mar 18 '26
That does make sense and seems like sound logic until one realizes that the giant backlog of lore and crunchy ruleset are what sets Battletech apart from every other wargame in some big ways. Why play clickytech, or Alpha Strike even, among all those other games on the market? Without everything that surrounds them, they don't really do much to stand out from the pack.
It seems like what is a common corporate blunder these days. Potential for growth is identified outside the sort of people to whom the game appeals, so they try to make it "for everyone." And soon it becomes for no one. Battletech is for anyone, but it doesn't appeal to everyone. It's the crunchy fictional future historical wargame, and among people who that appeals to, there's no substitute. That will never be everyone's cup of tea.
And based on how Battletech seems to have grown since CGL took over the IP, I feel like that illustrates the point. I know you weren't saying that Weisman was making the correct decisions or whatnot, it makes sense as a motivation as you describe it. I just find it interesting how that sort of thing seems to repeat in the modern era.
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u/CrashUser Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26
I fully agree with you by the way, it's marketing logic that seems to be not wholly based in reality. They even missed a significant trick to have a little cross appeal, they could have made the MWDA minis in the same scale as Battletech so old players might be interested in buying a few boxes for some easy combined arms minis.
It really doesn't help that Wizkids had completely flooded the market with clix games at that point, they were expensive enough that nobody really wanted to play more than one.
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Mar 18 '26
Yeah, looking back on my childhood I could have had so many more CBT games and minis if I'd found that instead of the stupid clix game that is rotting in a box somewhere lol
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u/GoarSpewerofSecrets Mar 17 '26
Honestly we got robbed, just as it was starting FASA collapsed and Wizkids clickytech jumped ahead.
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u/CaptainOld6996 Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
They're too over the top for me, even with a couple decades of rehabilitation to make them less cringey. Clanners you can actually buy them being fanatical about their beliefs (they're mostly children or barely-adults anyway). Blakists are like "we destroy civilization so no one but us can have a 4-slice toaster"
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u/Bookwyrm517 Mar 17 '26
Well, its more of "If we can't have the 4-slice Star League toaster, than nobody will!"
At least they got an appropriate ending for the kind of faction they were even after the rehab.
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u/Cykeisme Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26
I think the explanation behind how/when the Wobblies went insane might be a relatively recent retcon, as follows:
World of Blake was celebrating the prophecy of the Third Peaceful Transfer of Power coming true with the Second Star League, and was actually bringing WarShips to Tharkad to give to the Second SLDF as a gift. They were very happy with the Second Star League, happy with the Inner Sphere in general, and very happy that they would get to join the new Star League... because apparently they have centuries-old prophecies saying that this would definitely happen.
They were really looking forward to joining the SLDF, and had been preparing secret cyborg supersoldiers to help defeat the Clans once and for all, yay!
But when the council at the Fourth Whitting Conference decided to permanently dissolve the Second Star League, it completely shattered their entire chain of prophecy, and shook the Wobblies' quasi-religious beliefs. Some went into depression, others went mad.
So, uh, instead of giving the ships as gifts, the Precentor that was bringing them used them to, err, bombard Tharkad instead.
It wasn't an overarching plan, it was random individuals going nuts. But too late, now they made the entire Inner Sphere into their enemy, and they had to follow through.
And, completely unrelated to the Blakist Schism, ComStar actually had a huge stack of dozens of crazy contingency plans prepared for centuries, many of which were actually ready for use. Some plans which were never actually meant to be used except in specific emergencies, and certainly never to be used at the same time. Some involving grand strategy, some involving covert ops, some involving WMDs. But now all these plans were in the hands of the Blakists. In the panic after effectively declaring war on everyone everywhere, the Wobblies simultaneously set off every single one.
And now their secret super army that was meant to fight the Clans was turned loose on the Inner Sphere instead.
I think this was all a later retcon to fix the WizKids fuckery, but I think it helped the Jihad make a bit more sense.
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u/Fallenkezef Liao loyalist Mar 18 '26
Honestly, I'd of loved to see how the original plan, WoB Jihad against the clans would of played out.
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u/rukeen2 Look, I took the C3i out, what else do you want? Mar 17 '26
Eh, as someone ex-religion, it totally makes sense for a religious faction that believes they're at the cusp of fulfilling prophecy to lose their shit when it doesn't happen.
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u/Fedorchik Mar 18 '26
I mean, having some clear bad guys kinda goes against the idea of all-around infighting of the successor states that battletech was based on.
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u/MadCatMkV Green Ghosts Mar 17 '26
I was a teenager and couldn't even understand English. It was my first contact with tabletop Battletech and I loved it! The Wizkids site had a nice piece of tech where you could see a miniature in 360°, I loved to see them.
Jihad and Dark Age are my favorite eras because those were the ones I personally saw evolving from beginning to end
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Mar 17 '26
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u/No_Somewhere_7109 Certified Anubis ABS-5Y enjoyer Mar 17 '26
The Clan Invasion era is unironically so fun because suddenly every game against a Clan force feels like one giant Dark Souls boss battle lmao
It evens out in the later years obviously but there's nothing quite like CI.
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u/Otherwise-Weird1695 Mar 18 '26
You are certainly not a clanner "who've, I've, can't" 🤣
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u/SnugglyBuffalo Mar 18 '26
He is just using foul language in an effort to express his teenage Clanner angst.
It is hard being a sibcadet, and no one understands.
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u/Jrod_0789 Mar 17 '26
I just like big stompy robots no matter the era.
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u/PrimarisHussar Mar 17 '26
I'm just an absolute novice who hasn't gotten a tabletop match in yet and has been playing a frankly irresponsible amount of Mech5 Mercs, so I don't even have much of a frame of reference for any era. So I default to "big mech is fun, i like"
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u/RedditUser8409 Mar 17 '26
Can dip your toes in with Megamek (https://megamek.org/). Think MW5 pre SOK, though I think there were/are 3050 servers. As an old man yelling at clouds, Tabletop and Battletech in general went a bit askew after finally balancing Clans. Hence MW5 and almost all computer games are set in the sorta 3015-3052 era. 3067 was the last time I played TT.
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u/CosmicJackalop Ride or Die for Jiyi Christu Mar 17 '26
My friend is like this, refuses to play anything past Clan Invasion and even then complains about clan tech being too good
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u/EvelynnCC Mar 17 '26
The trauma of tonnage based balance runs deep
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u/Lancian07 Mar 17 '26
I am proud to admit I’m deeply traumatized!
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u/Bookwyrm517 Mar 17 '26
And I am so greatful that you suffered through it so that we can have BV. Creating fair matches is now 83% easier!
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u/g2fx STLsmith Mar 17 '26
It's coz people wanted to play clan without "playing clan."
Usually the guys who sucked at the game until Clan Tech came around. Just sayin'.
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u/PessemistBeingRight Rasalhague Dominion MechWarrior Mar 17 '26
It's coz people wanted to play clan without "playing clan."
IIRC the Clan Honour system of Batchalls and Trials was supposed to be roleplayed at the table by Clan players. It was intended as the balancing system - Clan players would fight like hardnose traditionalist Clanners while IS players got to fight dirty with focus fire, hidden units, artillery, etc..
AFAIK almost no one actually did it like they were supposed to (I'm not sure how many people would have known the Lore well enough to do it even if they wanted to) which is why BV had to be invented.
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u/g2fx STLsmith Mar 17 '26
Oh...my playgroup read the rules at the time...and made the "clan players" play clan.
They were not skilled enough to overcome the tonnage disparity, cried foul and switched back to IS. Then the IS players (who were actually good) "played Clan," and would win...handedly. We lost players to skill issue.
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u/Ham_The_Spam Mar 17 '26
tonnage disparity? I thought during that time IS vs Clan would have the same total tonnage?
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u/CrashUser Mar 18 '26
The whole idea was the clan player would bid down their even tonnage force to what they thought they needed to win, so unequal tonnage but without formal balancing. They were also supposed to stick to zellbrigan rules, like only engaging in 1v1 mech duels and avoiding melee until the opponent breaks zellbrigan.
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u/Ham_The_Spam Mar 18 '26
didn't know that bidding was something done on tabletop and not just a story thing. sounds like the "tonnage disparity" was their own fault
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u/g2fx STLsmith Mar 18 '26
Well...if you wanted to play Clan...you were supposed to "bid down" to your ability. IF I know player A sucked...I would understand if he bid down only 75% tonnage. IF he played by how it's supposed to go ...50%, damn...we cheered him on coz he was playing hard mode, and everyone knew it. Player B...that guy was a bitch. He'd go 90%...and he could actually play. Nobody wanted to play with that guy.
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u/MorgannaFactor Blood and Cred Mar 18 '26
"Tonnage disparity" from bidding down was basically just an informal version of BV that's used now, and that's only used now because wargaming players can never be trusted not to optimize the fun out of everything narrative. See also: 40k's obsession with L-shaped ruins to stop cheese, or for an older example, Imperium soup leading to players just grabbing the best units out of every codex, making sense be damned.
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u/g2fx STLsmith Mar 18 '26
Yeah...the players who didnt' read the book(s)/weaker players tended be the first to jump to "Clan Tech."
We were like..."no way is tonnage equal with all the bonuses the Clans give you...and did you not read the book? You're supposed to play with an arm tied behind your back, coz the Clanners believed they were the shit."
It's those players who just didn't get it...that caused BV to happen.
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u/Mal_Dun ComStar Adept Mar 18 '26
It's still kinda silly. If you expect role play stuff as balancing feature you rely on goodwill of the players and skill to execute the whole thing as intended, then you are in for a nasty surprise, as players will to a big degree just ignore it or cheat the system.
I am glad they came up with BV.
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u/Specialist_Sector54 Mar 17 '26
Honestly i like clan invasion conceptually because it's asymmetrical.
It's just unfortunate the cERPPC and cLPL exist.
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u/Ham_The_Spam Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 18 '26
the rest of the Clan energy weapons are also absurd, like cMPL being superior to regular ML in every way including accuracy except for tonnage and heat, both of which aren't problems anyway because of other Clan tech
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u/Specialist_Sector54 Mar 17 '26
The humble cERML is like a LL but with 1 less damage is quite silly, I will admit that.
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u/datCASgoBRR Mar 18 '26
Honestly, that wasn't even the real problem. The real problem is that in a hundred years AFTER the technical stagnation ended, the Inner Sphere is still only developing sidegrade technologies to their original tech and Clantech is only getting better.
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u/TallGiraffe117 Mar 17 '26
Shame, since once you get to the Jihad/Dark Ages, IS get some nice tech to balance out the clan stuff.
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u/Kettle_Whistle_ Mar 17 '26
That’s a good friend.
He warns you of unfair things, so you don’t suffer as he has.
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u/Bryligg Taurian Dept. of Tourism Mar 17 '26
Have you heard the news of our lord and savior, the RAC/5?
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u/Cinerator26 MERC LYFE Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
Do not forget the blessed word of the snub-nose PPC, bearer of the nine-hex short range, nor the endless beneficence of the Multi-Missile Launcher, with which ye shall deliver explosive death both afar and up close.
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u/SawedOffLaser This needs more Large Lasers Mar 17 '26
I like Clan era purely because I love the Timber and Dire Wolves.
That's it. I just like them.
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u/AnonymousONIagent Mar 17 '26
Dark Age/ilClan and 3025 are my favorite eras to play. I either want minimal advanced tech, or I want all of it.
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u/Baron_Flatline Mean Green PPC Machine Mar 18 '26
Does the era have Stealth Armor and X-Pulse lasers? If so, era is good. If not, era is bad.
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u/Magnaric Catgirl Amazons Kick Ass Mar 17 '26
I've been dabbling with the idea of actually springing for a starter box for tabletop. There's a local group in my city that apparently plays. I'm just reluctant because I'm not sure of they play latest IL Clan Era, or are firmly stuck in the 3025-3050s Era like many groups I've seen.
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u/bearda Mar 17 '26
Well, the nice part about the A Game of Armored Combat box is that it really doesn't care what era you play in. The mechs in there have variants in pretty much any era. Succession Wars Archer, ilClan Archer, the model is the same. You may end up using a slightly different record sheet that has different weapons, a different amount of armor, etc but you can say the little plastic dude on the table is from any time period. Like the honey badger, an Archer doesn't give a shit.
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u/DragonKing258 Mar 17 '26
Funny you mention Archer specifically. That guy is like the browning 50 cal of mechs: worked from the start and refuses to be replaced.
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u/Magnaric Catgirl Amazons Kick Ass Mar 17 '26
Huh. Okay that's nifty, TIL. I knew there were different editions(?) of the game, Alpha Strike and AGoAC. I just haven't really looked into getting onto the tabletop game yet, so wasn't sure of the main differences.
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u/bearda Mar 17 '26
They're different sets of rules. AGoAC is the Classic Battletech starter set, that's kind of the intro to the Total War book. There's a lot of complexity to it, it tends to scratch the "simulationist" wargamer itch, and it has a ton of variation. If you want a game where your mech fires a salvo of 8 SRMs at the opposing mech, you lock on but only 5 of them manage to make contact and peppers him with damage to his left arm, chest, and a luck hit to the head that causes the pilot to go unconscious you want AGoAC. It rewards you for making decisions about which specific weapons to fire off in a given turn to keep you from overheating and having issues the next round. CBT tends to be good for smaller numbers of units on the field, and tends to grow in complexity quickly when you introduce other unit types like infantry, vehicles, and fighter jets.
Alpha Strike is a newer, more streamlined ruleset that plays quicker, but loses a lot of the depth of Classic Battletech. There's the Alpha Strike boxed set, which leads toward the Alpha Strike Commander's Edition rulebook. Things tend to be generalized a lot more in the interests of having players track less stuff round to round. For example, separate weapons and hit locations aren't tracked at all; each mech has a number of armor and structure points spread over its body, and a damage they can do at each range without getting in to what kind of weapons it has. All things being equal games tend to be quicker, which leads to being able to do much _larger_ games with more units in the same amount of time. Want to command a company of mechs instead of just a lance? Alpha Strike might be up your alley. Alpha Strike tends to make the differences between different types of units a little simpler, too, so for combined-arms games where you're running a bunch of tanks, a couple helicopters, and some mechs it's less cognitive load.
Both rulesets work for any time period (the big ones are usually referred to as Eras in the books, like the Clan Invasion Era), so no worries there. The Alpha Strike boxed set DOES include a Star worth of Clan Mechs, so the only things someone may gripe about there is if you try to use those specific mechs in a pre-Clan Invasion Era game. Let them gripe. You can download the rulebooks for BOTH boxed sets from CGL's website, so you can take a look and see which one you think you'd prefer. And if you're wrong you can use your AGoAC mechs for Alpha Strike or your Alpha Strike mechs for Classic Battletech. There's a lot of flexibility available.
I feel like I've written a small novel here, but the short version is that either way it's hard to go wrong, and it's not like you're making a mistake either way. Whatever you get will be usable one way or another. I hope that helps!
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u/ShasOFish 1st Falcon Sentinels Mar 17 '26
If it helps, all the models are 100% compatible between both versions (even for the boxes that are specifically labeled for specific ones).
Alpha Strike and Classic each have their charms and issues, but gods this franchise is fun.
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u/Aggravating_Bell_426 Mar 18 '26
One the truly great things about Btech, is at it heart, the players are miniature agnostic.. I started with the cardboard counters in 2nd edition, did "force expansion" with the caps from the beer we were drinking, as well as the "hex nut of doom" that stood in for a direwolf until I finally broke diwn and bought the mini. Now imagine trying any of that with that other wargame..😱
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u/Starkde117 Mar 17 '26
I would ask to join one of there meets do you can gauge, a green flag for any group is folks letting you use their me he to learn
Source: i run an LGS and know who my problem groups are
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u/Magnaric Catgirl Amazons Kick Ass Mar 17 '26
This is a great idea. I might do this.
Hopefully they're a good group, gotta rep the Magistracy somehow.
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u/theonegunslinger MechWarrior Mar 17 '26
Only way to find out us ask, or post them memes
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u/Magnaric Catgirl Amazons Kick Ass Mar 17 '26
I may do that honestly. It's a closed Facebook group, so might ask them for an invite just to ask some questions
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u/JoshuaCastleBooks Mar 17 '26
I think there's a big difference between tactical wargamers, strategic wargamers and roleplayers.
It also varies based on how you set up your campaigns or if you're just showing up for a matched fight.
Personally, I'm all about campaign play and combined arms.
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u/ConstructionIll956 Mar 17 '26
MACKIE FOR LIFE
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u/TheSnadd HAIL CARGONIA! Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26
The Mackie is my son's favorite Age of War era battlemech. He likens it to the Hulk when we play that era or Star League. "MACKIE SMASH!"
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u/Cinerator26 MERC LYFE Mar 17 '26
Boy oh boy I love my slow, poorly armored shitboxes that overheat if they fire more than half their weapons and suffer an ammo explosion if someone says mean things about them.
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u/CaptainOld6996 Mar 17 '26
This but unironically.
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u/Cinerator26 MERC LYFE Mar 17 '26
See, I knew I was going to get replies like this, and more power to you, play the game how you like... but every time I see something like the MAD-3R's torso ammo bomb, 3/5 mechs with only short-range weapons, or the Rifleman's everything, it just makes me start grinding my teeth. Not everything needs to be a hyper-optimized pulseboat or Hellstar, but the 3015 shitbox era is probably my least favorite to play in.
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u/Bookwyrm517 Mar 17 '26
All the same, there's something to be said for mechs like the Banshee 3S. It suffers from basically all the issues you described, but it's also a wall of guns that has decided it doesn't like you.
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u/CaptainOld6996 Mar 17 '26
Bad mechs are the point of the game my dude. They didn't design them that way on accident.
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u/AlexOfFury Mar 17 '26
I don't play the game to just have City Nuker 3000 to blast at all the things from beyond their maximum range, I play to be stuck with my Great Grandpappy's Whitworth that's missing an arm and I can only afford half its ammo.
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u/N0vaFlame Mar 18 '26
They didn't design them that way on accident.
In more than a few cases they kinda did. As an example, the Marauder and Crusader weren't meant to have side torso ammo bombs. That's the accidental result of an unrelated construction rules change during the transition from Battledroids to Battletech. In their original Battledroids versions, their ammo bins were padded with heat sinks.
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u/Adept-Fisherman-4071 Mar 18 '26
3025 we have the best memes, the baddest bitches, and the biggest ammo explosions!
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u/EyeStache Capellan Unseen Connoisseur Mar 18 '26
Those elements are how a game gets done in 2 hours or so, tops.
BattleTech was designed as a beer-and-pretzels game you play in a couple hours on a Thursday night before work in the morning - ammo explosions in particular speed things up immensely, as does the focus on melee attacks that (relatively) low heat sinking gives.
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u/TheOtherOtherViper Clan Magical Liopleurodon Mar 17 '26
Yes.
The rest of the game is fun too, but 3025 is full of grit and desperation and it feels worn. It feels used. It's rough and it's ugly but BattleTech never feels as cathartic as when you've fought and scrabbled your way to the top of some shithole, broken, backwater mudfarm that you clawed away from your hated enemy with nothing but tooth and nail and single heatsinks.
Also it far and away has the most published options for things like non-combat support units and dropships and space stations and all the other units that make BattleTech feel like an actual campaign setting for a war simulation rather than Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots, the Boardgame.
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u/Cinerator26 MERC LYFE Mar 17 '26
See, that's an important point, the support units and campaign stuff, because I don't really play campaigns. My local gaming group just isn't conducive to that kind of playstyle.
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u/TheOtherOtherViper Clan Magical Liopleurodon Mar 17 '26
Battletech was originally "a reenactment war game for a future that never was". There was no concern for balance originally because it was scenario based. There was no concern for competitive play because the point wasn't to win, it was to tell a story of a battle. This is a large part of why Battletech is fun even when you lose, because it still feels like you accomplished something, made something happen.
Bad units were the point, just like how real militaries have units with significant flaws. Some of the early scenarios even had you start out with mechs that already had damaged armor and equipment. Overcoming the odds... that was the point.
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u/MassLuca007 Mar 17 '26
"and no LAMS"
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u/CaptainOld6996 Mar 18 '26
the true grogs are the people who insisted on LAMs during the years when they were banned
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u/EyeStache Capellan Unseen Connoisseur Mar 18 '26
LAMs have always existed in BattleTech and should always exist. They're cool as fuck.
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u/Callsign-YukiMizuki Least patriotic Free Rasalhague Republic citizen Mar 17 '26
Wait, you mean there's stuff that happens AFTER the clam invasion?
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u/Bookwyrm517 Mar 18 '26
What's this about bivalve molusks attacking? Why didn't I hear about this?
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u/Callsign-YukiMizuki Least patriotic Free Rasalhague Republic citizen Mar 18 '26
I dont know, something about bagels and zebras?!
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u/Balmung60 Purple Birb Good, Green Birb Bad Mar 18 '26
Hey, I dislike the FedRats regardless of the era we're in
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u/EyeStache Capellan Unseen Connoisseur Mar 18 '26
The Chancellor approves, Citizen.
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u/MrBlueBoar Mar 17 '26
I’m definitely in this picture, but I’m trying to reform! One thing that helped was reading about the world and history. I’m just opening up to Clan Invasion/Tech and trying to work my way forward.
I like my flawed and imperfect mechs and I love when the game is more than just making the perfect combos with the perfect systems.
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u/sokttocs Mar 18 '26
There's plenty of flawed mechs as the game moves forward. For example, stealth armor is really cool, but most mechs that have it don't really have the heat sinks to use it and their weapons.
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u/Mundane-Librarian-77 Mar 17 '26
Luckily I was never "that guy"! 🤣 Even though I've been a Battletech fan since 1986, I've had no real issue with any of the changes along the way.
There are a couple I feel were very badly mismanaged and I don't really enjoy a lot of the lore or fiction during those particular eras, but i'll still gladly make a force and play games in any Era, with any Tech level! 🙂
Recently I write up all of my forces in the current IlClan era. Mostly for convenience! If I game in the current setting then I never have to worry about specific era availability or faction rules. Every list can work with no worry about fielding a mech that technically doesn't exist yet!! 🤣 Perfect for pick-up games and league play! And excellent for introducing new players with no Era drama to explain!
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u/Zuper_Dragon Creator of the Frisbee (mech') Mar 17 '26
I love battletech because giant robot, don't care who or why, just like leveling cities with big robot.
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u/Fantastic-Rice4787 Mar 17 '26
I remember when i first joined (found battletech through yogscast ben) and the clan invasion/beyoned was a terrifying abyss of scariness since the HBS battletech only went up to just before the invasion.
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u/aeshniyuff Mar 17 '26
Wild that anyone could dislike the Jihad era considering what interesting tech got implemented and dope ass mechs, and another fuckin Opp for everyone to war with.. fucking lamos
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u/Slythis Tamar Pact Mar 18 '26
It gets a lot of spill over hate from the transition to the Dark Age. The launch of Dark Age was bad. The starter box had basically zero lore and it dropped months before the first novel. I will never forget cracking open that starter box, excited to read about the new era and just being confused because there was basically zero context for any of it. I enjoyed the game itself but was a poor college student and so was priced out of the game pretty much right away.
The actual lore and tech for the Jihad didn't really get rolling until years later.
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u/Mortonsbrand Mar 17 '26
Nah, if you were around when it was released it was real easy to hate.
The lore was WILDLY ham-handed, and the game itself was replaced by a MageKnight knockoff rules set.
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u/DM_Voice Mar 17 '26
MW:DA was fun. I think the only mistake with it was not sizing the minis so they’d be compatible with traditional map sheets.
I understand how tiny that’d have made infantry, but, still. It isn’t like most BT infantry minis are actually mech scale anyway, so they could be been the same size thy were
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u/Mortonsbrand Mar 17 '26
I’m glad you enjoyed it.
To me it was a trash tier game, just as MageKnight was. So we may just have to agree to disagree on if it was a fun game.
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u/Starkde117 Mar 17 '26
In my experience These also tend to be the people who think less of you for not playing classic and only playing alpha strike or overide
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u/Bookwyrm517 Mar 17 '26
....mmm, I'm not the biggest fan of override.
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u/Starkde117 Mar 17 '26
Good for you, im gonna have fun though if that alright with you.
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u/Bookwyrm517 Mar 18 '26
You do you, I'm just not sure the changes made to the system were done in good faith. Especially as someone coming over from classic, a version of the game the creator openly dislikes. It feels like they are trying to replace Classic rather than just make a system thats a midpoint between Alpha Strike, Destiny, and Classic. And while I don't take the position that either system is superior, I feel that the ardent supporters of Override are knowingly or unknowingly inheriting the hatred of the system that forms Battletech's foundation.
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u/ARandomGuardsman834 Mar 18 '26
Wasn't the creator an AI bro who crashed out after CGL C&D'd him for trying to sell AI artbooks?
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u/Bookwyrm517 Mar 18 '26
Yes and no. You have the essence of the story, but the details are muddled.
I don't know if they would count as an AI bro, but they were using AI images for progress reports on a kickstarter to fund their next season. At a certain point someone noticed that the images were generated and said they were less likely to support them because of it, and that caused the creator to have a prolonged crash out.
They tried to justify the use of AI images as a saver of time and money, and that it would help them avoid copyright issues. That only got them in more hot water from the community and the creator started to spiral when people said they were leaving (They even said they only cared about the backers, because they were the channel's shareholders).
Low and behold, a few days later (after upward progress on the kickstarter basically stalled), the kickstarter was taken down due to copyright issues. Turns out they'd used official copyrighted material for their promotion of the kickstarter, something you'd think they'd have seen coming.
There was no C&D, but the creator flipped out like there was one. As all this went down, they refused to acknowledge that they messed up and overreacted. They kept playing the victim right up until the end, and just continuing to crash out. It lost them a lot of fans and viewers, and I don't know how it worked out.
Sorry if the explanation was a bit long. I just wanted to set the record straight since I was at ground zero for the whole thing. And to be clear, it wasn't even the AI art or copyright infringement that drove people away; it was the creator's reaction that drove people away. People had felt that they were giving off bad vibes for a while, but the whole incident shed light on how bad it actually was.
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u/phantom-16 Mar 17 '26
This is basically why I've still refused to try classic. Smug jerks at the store saying that when I'm ready to stop playing the baby game, I can play a real man's game. You mean by not playing classic I won't have to deal with people like you? Deal!
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u/Bookwyrm517 Mar 17 '26
Sorry it has to be like that. I'm a person who only plays Classic, but its mostly because I haven't been able to learn Alpha Strike to the same level. I also prefer Classic because the various mechs feel more unique (which is harder to do in Alpha Srike) and because that makes it SO satisfying to watch the mechs get ripped apart in all sorts of interesting ways.
That being said, when someone asks how to get into tabletop battletech, I ask them how much time they are willing to spend on one game. If its 3 or more hours, I say Classic. Otherwise, it's Alpha Strike (Classic games don't actually take three hours. ...once you know what your doing. For new players, games will take several hours).
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u/Vilnius_Nastavnik 4th Donegal Guard Mar 17 '26
Classic is great exactly for dramatic, granular 4v4s.
If you should so happen to want to play company vs company or larger, or mix in some of the many, many cool things that make it feel like a plausible battle occurring for a strategic purpose like vehicles, infantry, ASF, battle armor, VTOLs etc. your choices are A) use alpha strike or B) quit your job and forward your mail to the FLGS because you live there now.
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u/DM_Voice Mar 17 '26
Just never ever make the mistake my friends and I did, with playing company-on-company using the Solaris VII rules.
I mean, we had fun, but it took a week.
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u/PessemistBeingRight Rasalhague Dominion MechWarrior Mar 17 '26
You mean by not playing classic I won't have to deal with people like you?
Fuuuck I hate people like that giving the game a bad name! They should go be neckbeardy arseholes somewhere else and leave the beauty that is BattleTech for people who know how to actually be civil.
I exclusively play Classic because I love the crunch and granularity, but I'd never judge another BT player for being turned off by those same features I enjoy.
The different formats exist to fulfill different purposes. Neither is objectively "better" or "worse" than the other any more than a hammer is better or worse than a screwdriver - different tools for different jobs.
Classic is for the "traditional" simulationist Lance vs Lance, or if you have literally a day to spare maybe up to company vs. company. Alpha Strike is designed to be much faster and lets you smash out a company vs. company fight in the same time Classic allows a Lance vs. Lance.
I believe Alpha Strike is also better suited to Tournament play than Classic, in part for that speed advantage but also simplifying scoring etc.? I haven't experienced that side of it myself so can't say for sure.
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u/Steelrain66 Mar 17 '26
As someone relatively new to the setting, who got into it from the more recent video games and spacebattles, that is the part of the setting I prefer, since it's what I know best. The Clans are good villains to me, but given how their culture is, I can't really see them as anything other than that. And what little I have heard of the era's past the clan invasion is way too grim dark. Everything I hear about the Jihad makes me roll my eyes.
That said, I do like the mech's themselves. So many of those are freaking awesome! No issue with the tech side of things, it's the plot that makes me keep away.
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u/Vaporlocke Kerensky's Funniest Clowns Mar 17 '26
I've gotten to the point that I love every era with the exception of pure introtech. Some of that is mekwars chase the Spider trauma from forever ago though.
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Mar 18 '26
I like 3015 and the clan invasion, i like the clans but def not house kurita or liao, but then again, who does like house liao?
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u/Burning_Haiphong Mar 18 '26
Actually kinda really me, though I do like a little lostech sprinkled in. Enough that it feels special but doesn't make autocannons obsolete.
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u/Wolffe_In_The_Dark Nicky K is a Punk Mar 17 '26
I personally hold that everything after 3067 is a formless blur of incoherent screaming and radioactive fallout, and refuse to accept otherwise because that would mean all my blorbos are dead or disgraced, but saying 3025 3SW-era is the only acceptable BattleTech is an objectively incorrect and debased opinion.
Playing 4SW-era and Clan Invasion with balance that doesn't suck is awesome, and my first games on tabletop being those eras really helped me get into it.
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u/Bookwyrm517 Mar 17 '26
I think in Ilcahn things are finally (inarguably) starting to get Coherent again. But thats mostly because the good blurbs from before the Dark Age are pretty much rotated out for a new cast. I still see where you're coming from though.
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u/Patron_Mamdani Mar 17 '26
These people are annoying but those who refuse to go past Clan Invasion ~3052 are just as bad and far more numerous.
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u/Dewderonomy Mar 18 '26
I understand this is memey, but the serious ramifications from this in terms of finding games is actually something that I was talking to my partner about literally last night and why I'm looking at hopping into Kill Team.
There are ~30 people in the greater metro area (~1 hour drive distance from end to end) playing BattleTech (vs the 30ish people between two stores playing Kill Team or 40K or even Infinity at any given time). Of those, 20 play AS exclusively, 3-5 play CBT exclusively, and the other 5ish play both. I play CBT exclusively, so now I need to find a game (let's assume we all have identical schedules, which we don't at all, but let's just assume).
I have to find someone who wants to play the same era as I, which is the current ilClan era, when most people are playing earlier eras. I don't play Clan, but very few seem to be interested in Clan anyway, so that continues to narrow down the kinds of games I can experience.
They also don't want to play combined arms, or if so, maybe a Manticore or something to throw in with their lance. No infantry or VTOLs or hover tanks, and don't even think about aerotech. That's essentially saying 60% or more of Total Warfare is being ignored rules-wise, never mind any kind of advanced rules, but they don't play with advanced rules either so that's a moot point.
And forget customs, because why would you want to simulate campaign play and the best part of the video games, that is, customizing your units with a building system that is better than any other in the genre?
So yeah, if I don't introduce someone to CBT, TechManual/MegaMekLab, and combined arms play, teach them the game, and am available for play when they are, then I have to resign myself to .003% of what BattleTech has to offer, and none of that fraction is what got me to buy into this game at all. I either get excited about medium lasers and single heat sinks or I play another tabletop game, and that sucks because full-blown CBT is easily the best system I've played over 20+ years of wargaming.
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u/Doctor_Loggins Scorpin Empire Stronk Apr 08 '26
I have been fortunate enough to cultivate the gaming group around me essentially from the ground up, so I've been able to get them into combined arms, campaigns, etc. I have to take the initiative and do a lot of the heavy lifting but if I say "Jihad" they say "How C3i?"
Keep your eyes out for new players! The best way to get em into the weird stuff is to bring em in from the start.
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u/mechkbfan Mar 17 '26
Partially me
Mostly because I'm an RPG type guy and my childhood memory of the games strongly overlaps with that era
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u/DreamSeaker Mar 17 '26
Honestly, on my part I just get overwhelmed with all the fancy tech post FedCom Civil War. Perhaps if I'd play in that era more that would change.
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u/Jaedenkaal Mar 17 '26
I’m still annoyed that anyone thought heavy lasers were good enough to make an omni variant for every single damn omnimech.
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u/JinterIsComing Orbital Urban Renewal Mar 17 '26
I quasi understand this. I don't go past the end of the Jihad personally-BT loses its grand feel afterwards with all the disarmament.
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u/Dry_Association_5418 Mar 17 '26
Genuine question, but are there actually people out there who refuse to play anything outside of 3025? I genuinely enjoy playing as and against Clan mechs, and I think that past 3050 there's some really fun toys that all factions get access to that I can't imagine playing without like UACs, ATMs and LBXs. After playing later eras for so long, I can't imagine playing only 3025 games outside of introgames for newer players.
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u/EyeStache Capellan Unseen Connoisseur Mar 18 '26
Honestly, I don't particularly enjoy playing outside of 3rd Succession War era stuff because, while the existence of stuff like ER Large Lasers and Pulse weapons and the like is undeniably cool, Double Heat Sinks just remove a very key element of the gameplay for me. Heat management is an important skill, IMO, and saying "oh yeah don't worry about it" just feels boring to me.
It's also why I don't play Clan Tech, generally, because it's too good - why bother paying 5 tons for an IS Large Laser when I can pay the same in tonnage for five Clan ER Medium Lasers that are functionally identical to the Large?
If there's no jank and no tradeoffs and no compromises required, I'm really not interested in it.
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u/CaptainOld6996 Mar 18 '26
"Refuse"? No. I also enjoy Clan vs Clan with strict Zellbrigen.
But I came in with the 3060s and all the "cool toys" and I actually went BACK to 3025 (actually earlier than that, late 2900s is my favorite period) because I find the scrapyard environment and general 80s action movie cheesiness of the era so much cooler.
Lostech not even meaning "Star League weapons" but like "cache of 300 rated fusion engines that are factory fresh and don't generate extra heat for no reason."
No weapon is as cool as fighting over the last water purification plant on some periphery dirtball, using a misrepaired Vulcan with negative quirks on half the weapons and a smattering of Vedettes and jump infantry, versus some Urbies and SRM carriers the local militia managed to rope together on a moment's notice. You have to get creative and make the best play with a bad hand.
And then one of your goobers sets fire to the facility. Oops.
Also, intro tech does not mean intro rules.
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u/ValVoss Fuck Around, Find Out Mar 17 '26
First three Succession Wars and hell Introtech in general is my favorite stuff by far. It's limited variety also really helps with my vibes-based lore posting and its easier to intertwine with my IRL education.
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u/No_Grocery_9280 Mar 17 '26
Yes, but most people love the Clan Invasion. They’ve clearly been trying to recapture the magic of that era. There is no shame in admitting that what came afterwards is just not as interesting.
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u/Cleanurself we straight up evil Mar 18 '26
The farthest I go in the timeline is Dark Age, ilclan just doesn’t interest me a whole lot but I’m not gonna brigade someone that does like ilclan
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u/LuckofCaymo Mar 17 '26
I just think it's neat. More ammo explosions and fisty cuffs plz. I want to store ammo in my cockpit and overheat every round. Lasers are for the rich, auto cannons for the fodder. And I have always been fodder.
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u/Necessary-Mix-9488 Mar 17 '26
No i totally love playing a pick up game with my less extravagant variant house mechs into your "Custom Mercs" optimized Mechs decked out with clan tech and prototypes. Super fun! Very Flavorful.
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u/Nerdyguyj Mar 18 '26
I'm like the opposite..games lately have been all bets are off any design that doesn't use super niche tech and I've had so much fun
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u/SurpriseMiraluka Mar 18 '26
In fairness, I just kind of grew out of the novels after the invasion of Huntress; I didn’t keep up with the lore. I’d love to see games set in the other ages
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u/CaptGrognards Certified Trooper Mech Enjoyer Mar 18 '26
Oh I’ve never felt so attacked in my life 😂
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u/Haivamosdandole Ilclan Star Adder supporter Mar 18 '26
I started playing Battletech by this time since last year and to be honest I just got directly into liking the Wars of Reaving (Clan Star Adder my beloved) and the Blessesd Order (Comstar is alive in all true believers of Blake) of the Dark Age
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u/MarcusAurelius0 Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26
Ill be honest the whole "Ha we destroyed the HPG network and nobody knows how" is annoying.
Whats more annoying is how humanity didnt invent new weapon system for centuries then theres tons of weapons that are niche and fucking weird. Just keep it.
Plus the story seems to go off the fucking deep end, some things I can jive with like clan and is society integrating, but the rest is just fucking weird.
So yeah, I kinda draw the line at the Jihad/Republic.
First experience with BT was MW2 in '98 or '99.
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u/SuchTarget2782 Mar 18 '26
They started out with a pretty well balanced game with a small enough equipment list that you could pretty easily memorize it.
And then they screwed it up.
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u/algolvax Mar 18 '26
Honestly, there is something to be said about weapons restrictions and strategy from 3025 heat management. Balanced play. Restraint, thinking "no, better not fire everything yet with that to-hit number". When machine guns were great, because no heat! Also, taking cover in the woods was also a risk if the opponent had any flamers. Heh, heh
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u/Smooth_Hexagon Mar 18 '26
"oh and if you use weapons with good range I'll complain about turret tech and act like Melee is some oppressed play style and not one of the most popular ways to play"
I know a great deal of 3025 fans just like the pic lol. Not every 3025 fan is like that though, it's still a super fun era to play in, it just tends to attract a certain crowd in my experience.
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u/MagicWarRings Mar 18 '26
The art was a lot better. I had fallen out of it and into MTG in 93 and now going back to read 3058 or whatever etc yeesh the art is like barely art at all.
3025, 3026 and Star League are truly amazing source material books.
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u/MagicWarRings Mar 18 '26
I love the Inner Sphere era the most.
But all of BT has a problem... no one can aim there guns? Weird.
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u/Lazy_Explanation_649 Mar 19 '26
To be fair, the original post FASA timeline used by WizKidz when they switched everything to that idiotic clix system was a HUGE nonsensical botched mess that shredded the lore of the entire franchise in favor of an alternate timeline where everyone went super stupid and tech slid backwards further than it did during the succession wars. No more double heat sinks, no more PPCs, no more Gauss Rifles, Fusion Engines were rare with Internal Combustion being the norm, ask the big guns were out in favor of Chainsaws, Axes, Swords, shields, drills, and wrecking balls, and everyone but for a select few forces had the same tech across the board with nobody having horded anything or capable of fixing and/or repairing basic IS tech from 3015!
You only think I'm joking but that was exactly how it got pitched and the figures prove it.
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u/Tricky_Function_9526 Mar 19 '26
Guys... those guys tastes are way too modern. I only play pre star league, pre age of war, pre-terran alliance... If you are not playing XTRO:1945 you are not a real fan of Battletech.
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u/Altar_Quest_Fan Mar 17 '26
Peter, just admit that you're stuck in the year 3015 in BattleTech lol