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u/Fidel89 I sell Regents and Regent accessories. Jun 28 '26
As always when someone mentions how affordable battletech is đ:
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u/_unit_04_ Jun 28 '26
Considering how much you get out of it in return,
The bang per buck isnât all that bad.3
u/Loxatl Jun 28 '26
Wish I could also build the models. It's insane that it I guess isn't profitable.
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u/TheOtherOtherViper Clan Magical Liopleurodon Jun 29 '26
Battletech tries to cater to a broader audience than 40k does, and that means more casual players. The more hardcore players were always going to modify their minis with a chopshop full of 3d printed accessories, so this is little more than a speedbump to us.
Giving fans access to preassembled minis not only keeps prices down but keeps the game more accessible in general. It's a good thing.
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u/Arlak_The_Recluse Jul 29 '26
Agreed somewhat, but the big thing is that you can buy a box of minis and learn to play Battletech in like 10 minutes at the game store. Huge difference to make it easier to get into the game
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u/Kilahti Jun 29 '26
OK, but...
If you are comparing the "but how much do you actually spend on this?" rather than "what is the minimum sum you need to spend in order to be able to play the common thing?" then Battletech is still going to come out way cheaper than Warhammer.
Because the average Warhammer player is also going to have a bunch of armies.
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u/plyingpotato Highlander Simp Jun 30 '26
Yeah, that's the thing. I have quite a few official models and a lot I printed with the help of a buddy, and I maybe spent as much as a reasonably sized 40k army, but those models make a few of my favorite lists and I can make a few more decent ones outside of those, they're not just the one army.
Plus I can get a friend into BT and tell them that they can have their own Lance to paint and go up against me with a $35 to $45 pack and they're free to borrow my paint and brushes, I can show them how to use mordel and they're good to go. What they spend after that is up to them but the minimum price of admission isn't super steep. It's a lot easier to pitch than a cool $150 on models and a $30 codex for 40k, though I'm not hip to 40k lists or prices anymore so that price might be different these days.
E: Holy fuck, codex's retail for $60 now? Am I misremembering or did they used to be $30?
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u/warzog68WP Jun 28 '26
Its less finance (though you bet a ton for the price from battletech), its more that I can paint up a lance in a weekend, whereas I get overwhelmed and exhausted looking at GWs new sculpts. Dont get me wrong, GW is making sublime art pieces, but I just don't want to spend a month painting a single model.
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u/OsseusOccult Jun 28 '26
And take that super detailed model, and multiply it by the scale of an entire army. I just can't keep up with the painting standard I want and the scale that the game operates at. It's a bit overwhelming
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u/FreshwaterViking Clan Wolverine Jun 28 '26
And by the time you finish an army, the guy you were going to play against has moved away and there's a new edition that has new units that make yours look weak.
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u/warzog68WP Jun 28 '26
The buddy moving away part hurt đ˘
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u/FreshwaterViking Clan Wolverine Jun 28 '26
It hurts even more when you're trying to do a D&D campaign and everyone lives within 20 minutes of you, but everyone says "I can't make it" 2 hours before the session. For months on end.
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u/warzog68WP Jun 28 '26
20 somethings...that's just poor planning. 30 somethings...man kids are tough to work around!
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u/PatriotTyrant Jun 28 '26
Which is why at least 20 years ago when I was more keyed into that stuff you had people picking their armies based on lowest # of models. Heck, I knew a guy who said âeff itâ and just did a guard armored company of like a handful of tanks and called it a day lol
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u/Cheomesh Kinetic Services, Inc. Jun 28 '26
I picked up the Bretonnia starter a little while ago. Thankfully it has mostly the simple models of my youth, but dang if that new plastic Lord isn't a world of difference...
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u/Ok_Protection8223 Jun 28 '26
The chaos trim zone is real and it CAN hurt you.
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u/warzog68WP Jun 28 '26
I have been looking at a Abaddon box for years now, as i know I won't do the warmaster justice but, the Scouring Sands Jade Falcons....they sparked joy the entire day of painting.
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u/OsseusOccult Jun 28 '26
Ugh. I paint Chaos and the trim (hyperbolically) makes me want to un-alive myself at times. And sometimes the product ends up looking really cool for it, but often I approach my Chaos models with a sense of dread đ
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u/Hee-hoes_Mad Jun 28 '26
I once painted a full 2000 points of Thousand Sons in one weekend. I saw gold trim when I closed my eyes. I dreamt about it.
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u/clearly_quite_absurd Jun 28 '26
With a bit of experimenting, the Army Painter speedpaint markers can work surpsingly well on battletech minis, but really struggle with e.g. 40k Space Marines. I'm saying that because it makes painting a lot more affordable in terms of space, if not cost.
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u/Ok_Protection8223 Jun 28 '26
Before I moved house I never realized how much infrastructure I had that went towards 40k and 40k adjacent things. Spiritually I am the train-guy given how much terrain I had made up.
I have learned to love the hex map.
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u/Cheomesh Kinetic Services, Inc. Jun 28 '26
The hex map is a big part of what attracted me. Naturally I would prefer a fully kitted battlefield - and BT absolutely lets you do that - but the baseline expectation of a simple hex map means I can bring just a handful of models and a flat pack of paper with me on the metro and just be done with it.
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u/hellvink EditableWarrior Jun 28 '26
You can skip owning warhammer, play battletech instead and field a lance of warhammers. Win win, time to bring the hammer down.
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u/grimdivinations Jun 28 '26
As someone who plays both, I simply think Battletech is better and more fun
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u/Saucychemist Jul 02 '26
100% agree. I find the hit location tracking, equipment critical layouts, movement impacts to accuracy, larger scale of terrain impacts, and customization-variation of units to create a wargame with just the right amount of RPG-flavor.
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u/KrisTheHaw Jun 28 '26
I tried to get into warhammer in 9th and 10th but the editions didnt last long enough so by the time I got rules for my army the next addition came out. Also, the rules changed so much a book I bought on release was outdated in 24 hrs. I'm not going to scrounge the internet or pay for an app after I've payed for a book just to play the game.
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u/AGBell64 Jun 28 '26
No lie the most fun I've had with warhammer is when someone in town put together a mordheim league. No need to worry about getting overtaken by events when your game's development has been dead for more than two decades
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u/Frogblast964 Great Father's Greenest Birb Jun 28 '26
You can own more Battletech than 40K for similar prices so Battletech is better. Plus, as others have said, the setting is more compelling.
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u/TheSupremeDuckLord Jun 28 '26
well yes but you don't need to have more battletech miniatures
i've got far more 40k minis than BT, can you guess which system i could actually sit down and play with what i own though?
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u/Frogblast964 Great Father's Greenest Birb Jun 28 '26
"well yes but you don't need to have more battletech miniatures"
does not compute
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u/SilasCrete âFoundâ an Urbanmech stockpile Jun 28 '26
âAs long as you have a card or sheet and I agree this bottle cap or paper clip is a Wolverine 7D, it is a Wolverine 7D. This bottle cap or paper clip cannot stand in for anything else, use your stand ins wisely.â
Thatâs been the standing rule for the people Iâve been learning the tabletop from, and I think what commenter above is trying to get at on top of the game being decently fun and quick to run.
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u/AGBell64 Jun 28 '26
The comparison starts to break down once you start looking at raw mini price
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u/GoarSpewerofSecrets Jun 28 '26
Yeah raw mini it can be comparable. But for Battletech it's 3-8 models per side. Alpha Strike gets larger but smaller at the same time with card tracking.
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u/AGBell64 Jun 28 '26 edited Aug 17 '26
Yeah if you think about battlemechs as just minis they're roughly equivalent in size, detail, and price to a lot of the true scale marine infantry. The difference is a "very big game" of battletech uses about 20 of those models in total while that might be 40% (and the cheaper 40% at that) of a marine army in points.Â
One of battletech's major differences in sales strategies is they really don't do premium setpiece models in a way that's relevant. You can buy a monobody dropship or some very expensive metal models for like $40 a head but CGL has yet to figure out how to sell yhe 32nd century equivalent to the Void Dragon
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u/Annadae Jun 28 '26
You can also mix your miniatures into armies way easier than with Warhammer, giving you a better bang for your buck.
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u/someotherguy28 Jun 28 '26
BattleTech is a game about positioning and has a setting that actually progresses. Warhammer is about praying that your factionâs codex is busted this edition and has a setting terrified of any character or plot progression.
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u/MagicMissile27 TDR-5SE Enthusiast Jun 29 '26
Yeah that's accurate. BattleTech rewards tactics and respect for the lore. Warhammer 40k rewards power gaming, sweaty tryhards, and operates on the rule of "he who has spent the most money wins".
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u/AKoolPopTart Jun 28 '26
Millionaires don't want you to know this simple trick. Buy battletech over 40k and save thousands!
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u/EldritchAutomaton Rasalhauge Sympathizer Jun 28 '26
Outside of collecting, I mainly moved to Battletech cause I find the lore more manageable, even if its still massive.
Also, I don't think Ive ever put as much time into any Warhammer game as I have Mechwarriori 5.
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u/TheyHungre Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
There's also the fact that the BT IP holders aren't hyper-capitalist, anti-competitive, lawfare-happy assholes.
Edit: Okay, plenty of legal wrangling with each other, but at least they're not trying to financially bend their customers over. Also, it's not a game of, "I take my turn, and then I'll walk off for a bit while you take yours, Yay I got the game-winning dice roll (who goes first)"
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u/AGBell64 Jun 28 '26
The primary difference between GW and CGL is CGL is a codependent licensee that hasn't vertically integrated their entire operation
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u/PatriotTyrant Jun 28 '26
It is also that for BT the lore and world come first, while the game is just an expression of that worldbuilding. For GW products the game overrides everything else and lore follows from marketing strategies based on maximizing player investment as frequently as possible and it is a palpable feeling for folks who have been around long enough to know that it wasnât always that way.
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u/AGBell64 Jun 28 '26
 It is also that for BT the lore and world come first, while the game is just an expression of that worldbuilding
Decision at Thunder Rift got sent back for revisions because the author had a character perform an action that would've broken the game rules. Also gestures vaguely at Jihad/Dark Age. Battletech is not currently visibly being driven by market strategy not because CGL is somehow nicer as a company than GW was, but because they have a lot of undercapitalized content that means they haven't needed to create demand yet
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u/__Geg__ Jun 28 '26
This should be past tense.
Recent experiments with BT universe and CGLs revenue from plastic vs lore is signaling a shift. We are starting down the same path of unit churn that GW has trod so well.
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u/PatriotTyrant Jun 28 '26
Yeah Iâm absolutely worried about that. Iâm a good bit uncomfortable with the direction theyâre currently facing.
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u/mattlore The only "Great" house, is the one who pays it's bills Jun 28 '26
I mean... Between the Aces box, the alpha strike starter box and like...One force box (Northwind Highlanders because fuck yeah) I have more mechs than I know what to do with haha!
And it cost a fraction of what my Warhammer 40k collection cost...Though my 2000~ old world dwarf army from Warhammer Fantasy days is my best bang for buck lol
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u/asyrian88 Jun 28 '26
Ok; but literally same. Iâm trying to decide what to do with my 6 shelves of AOS. I love my paint, but the game is dead to me.
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u/Gomez-16 Jun 29 '26
Less expensive and more fun to paint. Now if I could just memorize this 150 page manual to play.
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u/HueySchlongTheGreat MechWarrior (editable) Jun 29 '26
I had half my csm army invalidated by the move to 10th edition
I think being able to use the same inner sphere mechs for most games is a good thing that warhammer will never do
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u/PsycommuSystem Jun 29 '26
Then there's me, selling off a lifetimes worth of accumulated warhammer to turn into mechs because I'd rather play classic than 40k every time.
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u/Fanimusmaximus Jun 28 '26
Wait till we get Battletech+
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u/Saucychemist Jul 02 '26
Meh, that's basically Alpha Strike. Battletech for those who don't like the core mechanics of Battletech.
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u/Fanimusmaximus Jul 02 '26
No I mean like getting animated shorts and official battle reports and crap
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u/2words-4numbers ⡠AD SECURITAS PER UNITAS ⡠REPUBLIC OF THE SPHERE ⡠Jun 28 '26
I'm a BattleTech and Warhammer fan, and this little brother complex is really frustrating. BattleTech is a great game with completely different lore, themes, and gameplay than Warhammer. I'd much rather spend my time appreciating what makes BattleTech great than talking about how bad some other game is.
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u/AGBell64 Jun 28 '26
It's the incredibly clownable 800 pound gorilla in every conversation about tabletop wargaming.
Also the original joke was about not being able to afford a house and settling for warhammer so I just extended that downward
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u/Cheomesh Kinetic Services, Inc. Jun 28 '26
I just want a regular gaming group đ
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u/Saucychemist Jul 02 '26
Megamek, join a battletech discord, play with discord buddies. Sign up for megamek tournaments like the ones hosted by MRC. Its awesome.
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u/Cheomesh Kinetic Services, Inc. Jul 03 '26
I probably could...but I lack the requisite spare time, honestly.
Plus, like, the whole point of a table top wargame is to interact with people IRL
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u/TheWolfAndRaven Jun 28 '26
While I have the disposable income for Warhammer, I don't have the disposable time to do all the homework to keep up with the velocity of changes. Battletech has been a very welcome change when I learned the rules have basically stayed the same for most of it's life span. The lower barrier to entry is really just a perk because I can get people into it without being like "Okay first you have to drop like $1,200 and learn to build models". Instead it's "Buy this $60 box and you've got everything you need with a bunch of options including being able to play at home with another person".
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u/battlemechpilot Jun 28 '26
I actively played 40k from 4th Ed to 7th, dropped it after having kiddos - tried to pick it back up after 10th released, and I just couldn't justify it.
Plus, all the new BT sculpts look awesome compared to a lot of the old Iron Winds models.
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u/Vote_for_Knife_Party Clan Cocaine Bear Jun 28 '26
I was at a gathering the other day, and one of our guys was venting about 40k. He's wrestling with the fact that for the cost of replacing an army he could buy a good 3d printer, and then next time GW decides to fuck around he's just out the cost of filament/resin.
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u/HOUND_DOG-01 Jun 28 '26
I was the same way battletech is so much simpler and cheaper to do and play
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u/pennylicker855 Jun 28 '26
Itâs fun to own the minis and paint them and stuff, and I absolutely do.
But you can play with stand ins. Â You can literally write a mech name with an arrow drawn for the front on a hand drawn hex map. Â You can find every resource you need and have next to nothing in money to play this table top game if you want.
When I rode my bicycle to the comic book store in the early 90s on rainy days, my brothers were playing m:tg. Â I was the youngest of us and didnât have money to spend. Â I saw a couple old dudes playing BT at their own table and quickly realized I could play with no money. Â There were a lot of stand ins and hand written sheets at this time because this was before the days you could just order minis on the internet.
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u/MagicMissile27 TDR-5SE Enthusiast Jun 29 '26
Yeah, leaving 40k behind for BattleTech, historicals, and Middle-earth has been the best hobbying and quality of life decision I could have possibly made. So I think the meme is incorrect, it's not a downgrade at all, it's an upgrade!
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u/Eobran Jul 01 '26
What I love is that you can "pause" a game of Battletech. All Hexes have a number so at the End of a turn, write down which mech stands where, it's facing, if it's down, collect the data sheets, fold the map and come back to it later. What drove me away from Warhammer aside from "the rules changed before I finished painting my current list in a way that invalidated part of my army" was the time consumption and commitment needed to play a game.
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u/WillingnessStill5733 Jul 07 '26
same here, with me i got into battletech both because of mech warrior 5 and because catalyst is more pro consumer and i like to vote with my wallet
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u/rafale1981 Resting Bitch Face of Cordera Perez Jun 28 '26
This is like saying you âdowngradeâ from a Timberwolf to 16 Savannah Masters.
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u/AGBell64 Jun 28 '26
I wouldn't trade my shitty little corolla for a big luxury SUV but that doesn't mean I don't have less car for my car
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u/AppointmentPerfect Clan hide yo' relics Jun 28 '26
A true investor diversified his holding... both with a small side of Warmahordes
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u/OsseusOccult Jun 28 '26
It's a good move. Warhammer is just too massive of an investment half the time. Saying this as someone who plays it đ
Battletech's scale and setting really make it more appealing to me, though they totally are different games.