BattleTech: Game of Armored Combat - Why Did It Take Me This Long To Get Into It?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 เม.ย. 2023
- #battletech #battletechlore #wheretostart #wheretobegin
Catalyst Game Labs provides many different ways to enjoy the BattleTech universe, including rulebooks, fiction, t-shirts, and even plush BattleMechs. But the heart of the experience is a box set full of plastic miniatures, rulebooks, cards, and battlefield maps. Catalyst has four boxed sets available, with a fifth one currently smashing fundraising records on Kickstarter.
I take a look at the four box sets available on the market and their current Kickstarter for a fifth box BattleTech: Mercenaries.
You can check out the BattleTech: Mercenaries Kickstarter here: www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
You can learn more about Battletech at www.battletech.com
I'm now a Twitch affiliate! Follow me: / victoryconditiongaming
Official VCG t-shirts and merch: clevercowdesigns.com/vcg
Help support the channel on Patreon: / victoryconditiongaming
Join the VCG Chaotic Good Discord server: / discord
Follow VCG on Twitter: / dougvcgaming
Follow VCG on Instagram: / dougvcgaming
Follow VCG on Facebook: / victoryconditiongaming
Check out the website: www.victoryconditiongaming.com - เกม
![แขกคนแรกร้านแจ๊ส [ซี - เอมมี่] | iJazzKhunJang](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XP6C9kulFfc/mqdefault.jpg)
I have a few grand in on BattleTech... granted, I have been playing since 1990, and have around 300 mechs, 100 tanks, and a smattering of fighters, VTOLs, and infatry... it has been my go-to combat game for decades.
Also, manuals, modules, readouts, maps etc.
One of Battletech's greatest strengths and one of its more intimidating factors, is how much you can scale or zoom in complexity and size.
I offer a hypothetical story of The Four Mechs.
You have four Mechs, your friend has four Mechs.
In Alpha Strike and Total Warfare, you're happily playing a lance against each other. So maybe you're fighting a skirmish for something like a power plant or a small section of a town.
In Battleforce, each of those Mechs represents a lance or star (4 to 5 Mechs). Now instead of just a lance, you're running against a company of warriors, perhaps now you're fighting for a whole city.
In Strategic Battleforce, those Mechs now represent a company (12 Mechs or so), now your four Mechs are a battalion of sorts. Your army is probably fighting for an entire coast line or maybe a country.
In Abstract Combat, a mini or a chit on a hexboard is a regiment. Now you're battling for a planet. You've got 4 Mechs minis, now four regiments, running around a whole world to conquer and bring to order.
In Inner Sphere at War, you can take the results of said Abstract Combat and mark that world down as yours, or maybe you defended from the oncoming raid. Whatever the case you're now a House Lord, playing Risk-like rules to compete and coordinate with fellow players, fellow House Lords.
All the while those four Mechs, loyal to you, can be used in heaven knows how many conflicts because as each era passes, so many chassis have new variants.
You can build a legacy with those four Mech minis, decide the fate of many moons and suns and wars.
Or you can just simply take your four favorite Mechs, bash a fight against your buddies for beer and pretzels on a slow night, your call. Just so long as you're having fun.
There are only two miniature wargames I play. BattleTech is one. Now more likely to be the Alpha Strike game with my young son. Getting the new plastic miniatures has made a big improvement on the game. The newest artists make a huge difference. Odd fact. Catalyst doesn't own the rights to sell the miniatures (Iron Wind Metals does). However, Catalyst can sell Alpha Strike cards, and include "tokens" with them. The fact the tokens are plastic miniatures are just a bonus, but you're technically buying the Alpha Strike Cards that come in the boxes of minis.
You can spend $110 get the Game of Armored Combat and Alpha Strike and you have a ton of content and two ways to play the game. You have 21 mechs in a game that is normally played lance v lance 4 v 4. You are in for less than most starter sets and it is so many mechs.
Right?! It’s crazy! I always assumed it would have cost me more to get into this game and feel like I had “enough”.
Yeah, warhammer, you gotta take out a mortgage just to build a small army that's not even competitive, realistically 40 bucks can get you a lance that you can play right out of the box with the cards for alpha strike and data sheets are free online.
11:30 - well, Battletech minis WERE lower quality or weird sculpts for a long time. Back during the previous Clan Kickstarter they redid them and fixed that.
Ah! So Catalyst kind of boosted the popularity of the Battletech game with higher quality minis and materials if I’m not mistaken then?
@Victory Condition Gaming absolutley. I played from 87 to 93 and never used the metal minis. I was a kid and had no idea how to put those together. Carboard markers all the way. 😂 the Catalyst minis, alpha strike, and a growing distaste for GW brought me back after all these years.
@@ventarfield7115 i love that mindset of “we just want people to play the game. We don’t care how you do it.”
They weren’t great quality but it was appropriate for inner sphere. Slap on some camo paint and they looked pretty good.
The only thing that always got me was that you had to suspend belief when it came to the amount of missile ammo mechs could store. The had their own portable hole built into them. 😳
Same here. I've been miniature gaming since 1992. I've seen all the iterations of BT. I've even bought a few of those iterations...which sat on the shelf collecting dust. Never played. I can't tell you why I never played it. No idea. But, now I do. Just started a couple of weeks ago and love this game. I'm in. Terrain in-bound, 6 x 4 hex battlemat on the way also.
I need to get one of those battlemats for sure.
I've not long opened up the begginer box and loving it buying a game of armored combat box on pay day absolutely hooked and already painted the 2 minis I couldnt believe the value for money after coming from 40k
Totally agree. The Essentials box that came out this year is also pretty cool in that it gives you a couple mechs and a cool arena map. I mostly got it for the map. For $25 though it’s hard to pass up.
@@VictoryConditionGamingabsolutely also quick question so as you mentioned in the video about the total warfare book there Vtols and planes and vehicles etc but how do you go about starting all that as I like the sound of running some armoured vehicles and infantry but I've not seen anywhere that sells battletech infantry minis or vehicles etc it's pretty much just mechs that I've found online also thanks for the reply and video
@@zacharyscrivens198 they do sell some of those battle tanks as armored vehicles. I know I’ve seen them at their convention booth and I think the people who do mental Battletech minis also make them too.
@@VictoryConditionGaming Ah awesome 👌 👏 you were right ironwinds metals do do them I've just looked thank you so much they look bad ass to there's loads of them
Why did it take so long? Well because the minis before 2019 honestly sucked. It was holding the franchise back. The new sculpts are so much better now.
The minis are SO good!
Played this in the 80s but then really got into it in the late 90s to early 2000s. The minis were not all that bad and weren't that expensive. The books I found at a used book store. My friends and I got lucky when a game store closed and sold mech packs for $1 and $2 (we bought him out). A few of my friends use to make these huge egg shaped Dropships and different highrise buildings. Use to run this game with a dozen or more people at the local game store and then got into roleplaying it. It fell out of favor with me because the Clans kind of ruined the whole concept of stuggling worlds. Clan mechs definitely outclassed inner world mechs. I really liked playing pre-clan battles. Use to play a lot of Mechwarrior online which was a blast and even played in pods at WoTC which was awesome. Oh, and those minis about 10 years ago sold on ebay for $40 to $50 (after the original production stopped) and my painted mech sold for much more. It was so good my roommate began making his own molds. The game is great but I woundn't do it again without all of the friends I had back then and Game Matrix's war tables that supported all of us.
I recommend opening the Alpha strike box, I really enjoy alpha strike. Its more abstract but plays alot faster. Plus the actual 3D terrain though paper craft is very fun and useful. I highly recommend it
For sure. That mode of play definitely had me interested in Alpha Strike. I really like that they include both versions of the cards in products too. It’s also great they included paper buildings and trees in the Alpha Strike Box. For me the standard BT game feels almost like a board game and Alpha Strike is more of a traditional tabletop minis skirmish game. Both are great ways to play it’s just a matter of preference.
Battletech A Time of War is the rpg . it used to be called Mechwarrior.
Since this video, I've picked up a copy of A Time of War. I'm not sure if I'd ever run it, but I wouldn't mind playing it at some point.
The Alpha Strike box includes a star (5 mechs) of clans - they play by completely different rules than the inner sphere mechs, in order to play them correctly, you need to buy a clan invasion box. By the way, this is a very important part of the ent that you should familiarize yourself with before the game. I perceive the game as a historical reconstruction with elements of competition.
Battletech was originally produced in 1984 as Battledroids. due to George Lucas, it was re-titled in 1985 as Battletech (same rules/game). 2024 will be 40 years! the 5th release of the rules, thru 3 IP owners (game creator FASA 1984-2000, Wizkids 2000-2006?, now CGL 2006 to present).
the game is now in the 5th release. nothing has been removed, nerfed, banned or restricted. there are a couple of minor rules clarifications, but overall, the original rules are nearly identical to the 5th edition.
the game is scalable. meaning, you can play as simple as 1 v 1 mech on mech combat... all the way up to planetary invasion... and everything in between. all while using the same 2d6 game mechanics.
the role-playing game has 5 versions. Mechwarrior 1st ed, 2nd ed and 3rd ed. Mechwarrior 'a time of war' and Mechwarrior: Destiny.
as for larger scale battles, there is Alpha Strike, Battleforce and succession wars. Alpha Strike makes 12- 24 mech combat much simpler by reducing the weapons and armor to single values. Battleforce is a slightly abstract rules set that uses pieces to represent company, battalion, regiment and larger forces. the succession wars game is made for 2-5 players, each representing a different great house. you are trying to conquer different regions of space by moving and battling whole armies. there is also a rule set called battletroops. it is an infantry skirmish game.
take into consideration that there are over 100 novels, numerous video games, a cartoon series, the virtual world/mech pods, various online support, a TCG and about 100 different boxed sets and sourcebooks for the game. let alone a toy line, the plastic and metal miniatures. the game is also miniatures agnostic - you don't need them to play the game.
all that, and i haven't even talked about the game yet!
Thanks for all this background on it!
An excellent low cost alternative with more anime-like features is SAMURAI ROBOTS BATTLE Royale from Ganesha Games.
Ah! Good to know! I’ll check it out. Thanks for the tip!
three other games that are more of a role-playing game; palladium books Robotech/Rifts, Mekton and BESM. these games have been around for decades and do a good job putting you into Anime story telling.
I already get beginner, armored combat and clan invasion. I already know how to play (beginner) with my kid, but for flutter quiet difficult to understand the rules. From Indonesia 🇮🇩
Truthfully though Doug, the game is so much more than stompy robots. When they invented the game in the 80s, FASA created an incredibly rich and detailed universe. You can run entire campaigns with minimal stompy robots. Though, what fun would that be?
I feel like the whole Battletech IP is centered around stompy robots though. I think that’s the main draw… at least it was for me! 😂
@@VictoryConditionGaming I agree completely, BUT if you really get to know the lore of the Exodus, The Succession Wars, and The Clan Invasion, you suddenly open a whole new world of roleplaying. There's so much depth and intrigue, the possibilities become endless. Using the RPG elements, a GM can build whole campaigns where characters earn XP, advance their abilities, and then the battles become meaningful. We have to accomplish that objective, but can I really afford to lose my MAD-5D Marauder. Will I have enough salvage to rebuild or replace it? All of sudden, your tactics begin to change as you find ways to protect your mechs, sacrificing the armor of one to avoid another being hit or worse. Like I said, I've been playing for 30+ years! Btw, do you know the story of how Gene Roddenberry drove FASA out of business? *Evil grin*
@@HachimanMVPYou know the most fun part? You can run a BT RPG session entirely without mechs just moving stuff around for some C-bills and immersing in the world, or have fights on foot more akin to other rpgs while the mechs are duking it out in the background.
Reading! Start with the Jade Phoenix trilogy!
Ohhhh!! Thanks for the tip! I will!
Simple. Battletech needs better marketing. How many people played the Mech Assault games growing up and had no idea the games were tied to an extensive universe until hearing about Battletech years later?
When my friend started talking about Battletech to me and I looked at the mechs I was like in my head "this reminds me of that Mech Assault game I played growing up, but with politics."
I bet there are many more people that have heard of Mech Warrior or Mech Assault than they are people that know Battletech.
40k doesn't have that problem because every 40k product has the 40k logo on it! Logos are important!
Yes I agree, but what we need to remember is that Catalyst is still a very small team and they only have so much for resources. Not very many companies are the size of GW in this industry.
I don't intend to be political on a channel that isn't about that but I have to ask because I don't like politics in non political things...
Didn't they have a big controversy a while back because they fired an author for being Conservative or something?
Honestly, I am interested in both politics and gaming. However, I absolutely despise when they're mixed. It doesn't matter if the comments are coming from the Left, Middle, Right, Up, Down, or Narnia. I just want to play games to escape the real world for a little bit.
Would that be a big issue in the game and community or is everyone pretty chill as they just focus on smashing the big stompy robots together? Because, yeah, I don't want politics in my gaming but smashing big stompy robots together sounds like fun. Thanks!
I haven’t really dug into it if I’m being honest but from the people that I know that play Battletech they all seem to be pretty chill. They don’t seem to push their political views on the game or while gaming.
The politics were outside of the game. Summary: A conservative author (Blaine Pardoe), who had written for BT more or less since its beginning, wrote an unrelated fiction series about a modern American Civil War. This, along with the fact that he was an outspoken conservative led a "female nurse who was adopting 2 kids" to start a cancellation campaign against him. Catalyst decided to get rid of him to avoid controversy and gave "her" a chance to have a story published in Shrapnel as a reward(concession?). Turns out the nurse wasn't a nurse, wasn't female, it was a dude, who has since dropped his fake online female identity. Blaine loves battletech and stated that his fans should not turn away from it due to his cancellation.
@@craiglytton1641 Well, thanks for the update. However, I have since been looking more into Battletech and have been watching videos from multiple channels about it. Buyer's guides, how to play videos, lore explanations, gameplay, and so on and forth. I don't buy any board game without doing a bunch of research.
Well, anyways... I found another channel from a creator who disagrees with Catalyst politically but still supported the game. They even funded the recent Kickstarter supporting Catalyst despite the differences. Catalyst apparently responded by cancelling their pledge along with the pledges of others over politics.
Ah, understood. Catalyst doesn't want money from anyone who disagrees with them politically? Fine, message received. I'm out.
Great business move on them by the way. Turn away about 1/2 of their customers including those like myself who would have gladly brought the stuff to game nights at my local geek shop which would have been free advertising for them? Fine... I'll put my money in the hands who will happily take it.
@Random Person I understand completely, and the company is basically woke garbage. The only reason I will buy from them is I have been playing Battletech since 1985 and stuck with it through several different companies. Blaine Pardoe himself said he loves BT and we shouldn't give up on it. I don't usually buy directly from Catalyst for this reason. Of you are new to it, I completely understand not getting into it based in the company's behavior. Maybe in the future Catalyst will go under or give up the license and another company will pick it up. But unfortunately, they just had a very successful kickstarter so I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Pardoe supporters claim everyone is out to get him for his conservative views... these are the same people who want to stir up controversy and pretend that Catalyst is going to delete the Rommel from the setting because of fake demands from ThE sNoWfLaKeS because it's named after Erwin Rommel.
In truth, Pardoe sure looks more like a Rowling-type, where he can just out-spend people to win legal battles against them. And it sure looks like Catalyst decided that was bad optics.