Understanding Battletech

Disclaimer: 

This article is written to be up-to-date, as of January of 2020. Its information may eventually become out of date. In particular, there are currently rumors that older books will be made available in print-on-demand format, which will make previously expensive collectors items much more available to future gamers. New eras and expansions are likely to be published in the coming decade. The books may undergo another formal restructuring, as the current corebook setup is nearly a decade old at this point. The entry point box sets will also likely be replaced by new products in the future. Some of the linked resources may become dead links as the online presence of the brand continues to decay. Etc. Etc. 

This was written while I was in the process of getting into the hobby. It is, essentially, my notes to myself to try and sort it all out in a way that makes sense to me, shared in the hopes that it may assist others. It may contain some errors. I'm fine with that. 

I'd also like to mention that nobody pays me to write these things, not even advertisers, which I think should be clear considering how I speak pretty negatively of products even in my positive articles, but it should probably be said.

How Lovely

You probably know the franchise as "Mech Warrior" from the extremely popular and extremely niche video game series derived from the Battletech franchise. However, the video games are not the heart of the brand, even if they wound up being its face. 

So let's imagine that, like many nerdy kids who grew up in the 90s, you've occasionally seen glimpses of the giant stompy death machines of Battletech, and now you want to poke your head into this corner of the hobby. To you, I say Welcome! And good luck! See, Battletech as a franchise has gone through a number of mutations as the IP has passed hands over the decades, and now it is extremely difficult for people entering the hobby to decipher what products are current, what products are collectors items, and what products are just obsolete junk. It's also hard to tell what products are supposed to be compatible with each other. Cease your mourning however, for I have guidance! I, a hardcore game nerd have navigated the paper jungle of Battletech, and have compiled this guide for you to use! So, proceed and be enlightened! And once you have a lance of your own, shoot me a message and we can roll dice!

This guy looks... Familliar.

History Lesson

Ok, let's get something perfectly clear right from the start: Battletech is a clunky and imbalanced board game for grognards, about badly designed giant robots kicking the everloving shit out of each other. It is counter intuitive, slow, awkward, old fashioned, over complicated, and wicked fun.

Over the years, the core IP has belonged to 3 main companies:

• FASA
• WizKids
• Topps (Catalyst Game Labs)

FASA was the originator, and started the popular nerd game trend of making their product as obtuse and unapproachable as humanly possible.

The original game, Battledroids, was released in the 80s, and used mech designs licensed from the Macross franchise. It had nothing to do with Macross, they were literally just too lazy to pay for an artist to make original art and models for their game. Surprisingly, despite getting sued to near-oblivion by George Lucas' lawyers for using his word (droids) they still managed to make enough money to keep publishing the game!

So they made a new version and called it Battletech. Three guesses what IP inspired that name. Generally speaking, the second edition is considered to be the actual founding game, while Battledroids is seen as sort of a prototype that tragically went to market too early. Since that release, there has been an unending stream of supplemental and updated content released for the game.

WizKids tried to "restart" the franchise by making a whole new game system and set their events hundreds of years after the Canon FASA timeline. They also scrapped most of the old mech designs (a good move in my opinion) in favor of even dopier ones (oops). This was called Battletech: Dark Ages. They quickly realized that the hardcore fans didn't think that was especially cool, so they also carried on publishing content for "Classic Battletech", licensing that product out to the German publisher FanPro, who opened an American office to provide the English products.

Not much happened for a while, they published the same kinds of expansions as FASA did, updating some old stuff to be more in-line with other content, and occasionally making Classic BT stats for Dark Age battlemechs. They did eventually make rules compilations books, which made it easier to run the game for everyone involved.

Then it went to Catalyst Games Labs. Catalyst went about formalizing the rules systems and updating them to a form a modern audience can digest, even if it seems a little "ye olde fashioned" at times. More importantly, they focused in on Classic BT, dropping the clarifying term and getting back to the roots of the game. They truly honor the work that was done by FASA and those who carried the Classic torch through to today, and they hold true to the original vision of the franchise. (Awkward mech designs and all, though the sculpts are a little beefier now thanks to the influence of MechWarrior franchise artists.)

In addition to these three, you also have Microsoft, which owns the rights to the Mechwarrior video game franchise, fully separate from the Battletech franchise. FASA had a separate subsidiary for their video games, and Microsoft bought those licenses specifically. They make the video games for the most part. Now, so far Microsoft has apparently worked closely with the Battletech guys to keep the two franchises in lockstep together. Hopefully, they continue to have a positive professional relationship for many more decades to come.

In between all that, there are a number of other companies who have had licenses to make secondary Battletech products, such as figures (formerly Ral Partha, now Iron Wind Metals), toys, a card game, merch, and even a Saturday morning cartoon that blew chunks and got them sued a second time.

Currently, the franchise is in a state of decay and rejuvenation at the same time. Catalyst Games Labs is a small company and does not have the income to match the production demand of its consumer base. Basically, when they make a product, they do a limited run of that product. Sometimes that run lasts a couple years, sometimes it lasts a couple months. If you don't get in on the ground floor of it, you miss out unless you buy a used copy. Then you're stuck with pdfs. Some of these products, because of their limited availability, can be hundreds or even over a thousand dollars. Just about everything physical BT is a collectors item. One important thing to note though: the PDF record sheet books are actually better than the print versions, because you'll always get better results from an original printout compared to a photocopy, and you don't have to worry about treasuring your masters in a locked safe away from the elements of life.

That being said, unlike games like D&D, (which reinvent themselves every decade or two) Battletech is shockingly stable and consistent. There have been very few changes to the full rules or to unit stats over time. Rather, new rules are added as optional expansions that can be applied to the game in layers, and starter rules are stripped down versions of the core rules system to ease entry to the hobby. Thus, instead of editions, you have tiers of optional complexity. As such, even products that are like 10-20 years old and found at a garage sale are usually still valid in modern play, and are pretty much guaranteed to still be usable even if they're slightly out of date! The big thing that will stand out is the art. After a while of looking at BT products, you'll be able to estimate the age of the product by simply looking at the design of the mechs.

The web communities for BT, however, are seriously suffering. Some of the older online communities are now full of broken links, with their last page updates being half a decade ago. Some rely on flash, which is being phased out of internet browser compatibility. I'm trying my hardest to archive whatever is usable from these sites before they become LosTech. If any of it can be shared, I will make it available in the future, either through this blog or as a contribution to The Trove. Key among the lost is the old battletech fiction website, BattleCorps, which had thousands of pages of canon fiction. The whole site is gone with no indication that all the texts will ever be made available in another format in the future. In a way, the franchise has a small hole cut out of it because of this loss. All that remains are 2 volumes of collected fiction in pdf format only hidden on DriveThruRPG.

The dice show the direction the mech's torso is pointed and its movement modifier.

The Game Itself

Ok, that's all fine and dandy, but what is the game itself actually like? Well, I'm not going to go over everything in excruciating detail, but I'll cover the basics in a way that the rule books kind of fail at.

• First, you need at least 1 miniature (or other object representing a miniature) per player. A standard lance is actually 4 mechs, but just to get started it's best to keep it to a minimum.
• Next you need at least 2d6.
• Then you need two of the officially produced 22"×18" hex maps. There are rules for playing without a board, but that's outside the scope of this article. 
• You need a book or pdf of record sheets and a photocopier or printer. (Or use an interactive option from the links section at the end of this article.) Seriously, these are fundamental to the game. DO NOT RECORD ANYTHING ON YOUR BLANKS. Use them as a base to photocopy new sheets to use in game. I'll be honest, outside of the box sets these are a pain to get in hard copy. Luckily, most are available in PDF, and original prints are always better than photocopies anyways. Just be careful to protect those files after you purchase them, or they'll disappear like the digital fart they are.
• You will need a rule book. Any official rulebook is fine. But you'll need to reference it often. This is not a simple game, you are trespassing on deep nerd territory here.

You can get all that stuff in a box set. That's why they exist! Alright. Let's talk basic game flow.

1. Players set up two map sheets edge to edge and choose units. (Catalyst did release some high quality double-sheet format maps. Good luck finding those in a store.)
2. Players agree to the victory conditions. Usually this is just "destroy all opposing mechs" but players can also create stories and other fun and unique experiences by running battles with different goals, such as king of the hill, capture the flag, escourt duty, etc.
3. The players each roll 2d6. Whoever rolled highest wins to go second. That's right. Winner goes second. Fight me. From now on the winner is player A, and the loser is player B.
4. Player B chooses an edge of the map and places their units on whole hexes along that edge. Player A has to enter through the opposite edge.
5. Play now goes through a series of 5 phases. In each phase, players alternate between each other making declarations or moving units one at a time. (There's a special rule for when there are an uneven number of units)
6. The first phase is the movement phase. Player B moves a unit, then player A moves a unit, then player B moves another, etc. This goes until all units have been moved. It is important to note that a unit may be unable to move without actually being destroyed. These units also need to be "moved". To clarify, standing still is considered a movement. Thus, if you have less mobile units you can delay moving your fast guys by having the dopes stand still, forcing your opponent to reveal more of their positioning strategy. At the end of the movement phase, any rolls necessitated by movement are made and the consequences are played out. (In other words, we check to see if anyone fell over.) How much you move adds a modifier to future rolls that makes you harder to hit and also makes it harder for you to hit stuff. To record this, we place d6s as markers with the modifier (a number between 1-5 with 6 as a stand-in for 0) facing up next to the mech it applies to. This also allows us to mark which direction a mech's torso is facing if it isn't pointing the same way as its feet. Yes that's a thing and yes it matters.
7. The second phase has players declare attacks. This follows the same process as movement. It is important to note that attacks are not processed on the phase in which they are declared. Attacks are processed in their own phases. We'll get to the consequences of this in a second. As with standing still, not attacking is an attack declaration.
8. Alright, now we do the ranged attack execution. Once again, attacks are handled in initiative order. Because attacks are processed separately from declaration, that means they don't have to be processed in the same order of declaration. That doesn't matter as much as one might think because every declared attack gets processed, even if the attacking mech is destroyed this phase, and even if the target mech has already been destroyed. This means it is possible for two mechs to destroy each other simultaneously, which means it is possible for a game to draw with mutual destruction.
9. Then we do the physical attack phase, which is the same thing but with wrestling and melee weapons. Again, all declared attacks are processed no matter what. Again, it follows initiative order.
10. The fifth phase is the heat phase. Stuff you do, and some things that happen to you, causes your mechs to accumulate heat. If your mech overheats, it goes nova. So, manage your heat carefully. During this phase, accumulated heat is added up, then your heat sinks remove some of it. If your mech shut down due to heat in a previous turn, this is when it tries to restart.
11. The end phase resolves a bunch of miscellaneous things but mostly just resets the board for the next turn. A key thing to remember is that mechs lose their movement modifiers and face forward during this phase.
12. That ends the first turn. Play begins anew with initiative being rerolled for the next turn of 5 phases (Starting from #5 in this listing). Play continues in this loop until the objective has been achieved. The rules say each turn represents an in-game time of 10 seconds, but in real life a turn can take 5-10 minutes. As such, depending on the number of units on the map, (and the relative skill of the players) a game might take a half hour to several hours.

And that's the very skeleton basics of how the game is played. Everything in that has complex rules. Movement has torso twisting, arm flipping, different movement modes, terrain effects on movement, and more. Every mech has multiple weapons each with slightly different rules. Mechs have quirks. The mechwarriors have stats that alter how effective their mech is in 2 different dimensions. There's a wide variety of melee attacks aside from basic collisions. If this game sounds kind of clumsy and slow, that's because it is. I'll be honest: it isn't the best designed game ever. But it is still very fun and worthy of play. If this kind of super-nerddome appeals to you, I encourage you to pick up a box set and get in the game.

This is very much more anime than later products.

Product Guide

The current version of the game has been well managed by Catalyst to update almost everything from older products to the newer, current format of play. That means any old products are now either garbage (record sheet books are a good example) or moderately valuable collectors items (box sets, figures, tech read outs, etc. The game's products are sold in 3 groupings based on how elaborate the rules are. Starter Rules products are the intended entry point to the franchise, are the most readily available, and are the simplest version of the game to learn to play. They are not, however, tournament level play like what you'll see at a convention. Full Rules are the tournament level rules, and do not come in box sets. Rather, these are sold as rules books separate from gaming paraphernalia. Finally, Advanced Rules products go beyond tournament play, adding a whole host of optional and variant rules to represent all kinds of things the game was never meant to represent, like conquering entire star systems and building whole armies. Again, advanced rules products are not sold with any swag, they're just books. Personally, I think getting some merch along with those books in a fancy box set would be awesome, but then again I don't work for those people so what do I know?

Aside from the mainline products, there are some adjacent products in the franchise, some of which are compatible with the core game, others are not. We'll cover those at the end of the product guide.

Current as of 2020

Starter Rules (Level 1)

Some time ago, Catalyst created an Introductory Box Set. It contained 24 plastic mech figures and multiple stapleback booklets of rules, lore, and painting suggestions. It also contained some of the highest quality game boards the franchise has ever seen before or since (actual folding heavy cardboard, rather than simple folded paper). Though this product is now out of print in favor of new box sets, there's enough of them still floating around in the wild that, as of 2020, it shouldn't cost you more than a couple hundred bucks for one in new condition.

More recently, they abandoned the single box set in favor of a Beginner Box and a Core Box. (Seems having it all in one box together was too intimidating for a lot of people)

The Beginner Box contains 2 plastic figures and a simplified version of the game rules to get newbies playing ASAP. It is much friendlier and less intimidating than the old Introductory Box Set.

The Core Box (a name I made up for it just now) is the latest edition of the board game proper. It is sold under the name "Battletech: A Game of Armored Combat".

Current as of 2020

Full Rules (Level 2)

Both box sets deal exclusively with giant stompy robots, and for a lot of people that's more than enough. However, that isn't the WHOLE game. See, Battletech is an abstract board game system that has the capacity to represent all aspects of a battle, from giant mecha, to infantry, to aircraft, to even spacecraft and orbital bombardments. To get the full rules for representing literally any kind of thing in a game of Battletech, you'll need to get the core rule book, called "Total Warfare". Total Warfare is the official tournament level rule book used by referees at major gaming competitions at conventions around the world.

Adjacent to Total War is a second corebook that is all about making custom units that are technically valid in the game. This book is called the Tech Manual.

A more recent and third corebook is also available, called the Mech Manual. It is, essentially, Total War but for mecha units only. That way, if all you have is the board game and mech figures, you can still experience the full rules without having to dig through all the cruft about unit types you don't even have. The Mech Manual is not a tournament book like Total War, but it'll give you a similar experience in your home games. It is also better organized, which is weird for a nerd game book.

Current as of 2020

Advanced Rules (Level 3)

There are essentially 3 advanced rules books.

Tactical Operations just adds more of everything to the core combat game. It's a great expansion that allows you to represent warfare in a truly granular sort of way. Currently, tac ops has been split into 2 separate books, one for rules and one for equipment, as the original book was 400+ pages long.

Strategic Operations contains rules for waging combat within a single star system. Its time scale is set in hours. This book and the other following advanced rules books use a new game system called Battleforce to represent especially large scaled conflicts, rather than defaulting to playing a million games of core battletech. (Newer editions omit Battleforce, as it has been displaced by Alpha Strike)

Interstellar Operations is the same as Strat-Ops, except it's scaled up even more to represent conflict between multiple star systems and interstellar empires. This book's time scale is set in months.

Adjacent Products

RPGs

Alright, let's talk about the Battletech RPGs right off the bat. The idea of the RPGs, is that they should allow players to roleplay out the scenes that happen between combat, creating a sort of window-trimming to justify the board game's events into an improvised narrative. All four RPGs are valid games, but only Destiny is considered current, the others are just kind of legacy products at this point. 

First there is the original Mechwarrior RPG, which had at least 3 editions since it was originally published in the 90s.

Then there's the Classic Battletech RPG by WizKids, still being sold in pdf by Catalyst. It is literally just a renamed copy of MW RPG 3e, with a new cover and some incorporated errata.

Catalyst then rewrote the MW RPG from the ground up, creating a fourth edition of the game, albeit a fairly differently balanced and less random one. It is nolonger the official role-playing conduit for the franchise, despite also still being sold. (In PDF format of course, a hardback of the AToW corebook can go for over 1000$ at the moment.) Some fans have a noted disdain for the restructuring of these rules, preferring the 2nd or 3rd edition of the MW RPG.

Current as of 2020

Most recently, Catalyst has released another RPG called Mechwarrior: Destiny. This game is not an original game system like the other two, nor is it derived from them. Rather, it cannibalizes the Bubblegumshoe system for the Battletech universe. I have no idea how the heck that works, or if it is compatible with the mainline game. Apparently, it is intended to be much simpler and streamlined, with completely original mech scale combat rules. Honestly, at that point, I'd probably just run the BT universe using the Mongoose Traveller 2nd edition rules.

Current as of 2020

Campaign Operations

Next up is Campaign Operations, which is a sort of stand-alone book in the style of the advanced rule books, but without any real rules. Rather, Camp-Ops gives guidance on how to create and manage ongoing multi-session narratives of a series of Battletech games. This book is conceptually compatible with all other Battletech products, but works best as a tool to help bridge the gap between the RPG products and the mainline games, especially when advanced rules are in use.

Current as of 2020

Alpha Strike

The third adjacent product I think we need to talk about, is called Alpha Strike. This is a rules light contemporary reinterpretation of Battletech as a wargame. It is designed to handle far more units and be more efficient with time management. A battle that would take hours in CBT might take minutes in AS. Alpha Strike is an evolution from the Battleforce rules that debuted in the advanced rule books. It is not readily compatible with any other BT products except the figures and maybe Camp-Ops. That said, in the years since its publication, AS has displaced the wargame rules, and is currently being pushed as THE Battletech wargame, as opposed to the mainline board game. It can be very hard to find a hardback copy of AS rules, and good condition copies can be worth a lot.

Ah, it looks so much like the 90s I can smell the cheap cardboard.

MechWarrior Card Game

There also used to be a card game. It is out of print. The cards are collectors items of a sort, but only valuable to a dwindling coven of elder nerds.

NGL, Mechwarrior fashion is an excuse for sexist writing in the early novels.

Fiction

Aside from actual gaming products, Battletech is distinguished from most other games by having a deep and richly detailed fiction element. This fiction is more than just a tie-in product or a justification for the game. If anything, the game is an expression of the fiction in a way. Most battletech communities online will spend a great deal more time talking about the fiction as compared to the actual game. There are 3 main branches of Battletech fiction: Technical Readouts, Sourcebooks, and Novels.

The latest TROs use named eras instead of starting years.

Technical Readouts

Technical readouts give you the in-universe details about the technology used during a certain time period or by a certain faction. They don't give much in the way of usable game stats, but they will tell you things like, "The Timber Wolf is known as the Mad Cat to the Inner Sphere. When it was first encountered, the targeting computer struggled to identify it, confusing it for a hybrid between a marauder (MAD) and a catapult (CAT) causing its identification name to flick back and forth between the two designations."

The game has moved away from these in favor of smaller PDFs.

Sourcebooks

Sourcebooks are everything you'd expect given the name. Just like for an RPG, sourcebooks tell you all about factions, places, time periods, historic events, etc. They're kind of like fiction textbooks. Unlike tabletop RPGs however, BT sourcebooks lack much usable game info. They're more for entertainment, and the pictures are often used as inspiration for how to paint one's own units to suit their favorite faction.

Pictured is the Warrior Trilogy, the foundation for the whole setting's history.

Novels

Then you have the novels. The original novels were published in the 80s and for FASA Battletech, and... well, they're rough. Some of the writing is kind of ham fisted and tone deaf. Then you have the Dark Ages books, which I know nothing about. Finally, you have the current classic Battletech books which are being written to fit the Catalyst Labs interpretation of the setting. The novels expand on the lore in a way the board games simply do not, and a lot of them really tie the narrative of the Mechwarrior videogames to the lore of the Battletech setting. You will hear a lot of people compare the BT novels to Game of Thrones. This is only true in the most superficial of ways. The writing isn't THAT good, but it's passable pulp that brings the lore in the other fiction books to life.

Get it? Eh? Eh?

Obsolete(ish) Products

Ok, let's talk about the products you might run across that aren't as applicable to modern play as one might hope. These are old rules expansions that either got absorbed into more unified rule books later on, or turned into a different game system entirely.

Early rules expansions were conceived as standalone board games.

CityTech

A boxed set expanding on the classic BattleTech boardgame but also playable as a stand-alone game, CityTech provided rules for tanks, infantry and buildings in addition to the standard game rules. It also presented a number of additional BattleMech designs and tanks. All of this would later be compiled into the Battletech Compendiums, which would later be corrected and reorganized to be published as Total Warfare.

Pictured is the first AeroTech, I like its box more.

AeroTech (1 & 2)

The first AeroTech was a box set expansion that added rules for aerospace operations that supposedly lead up to the ground battles the original game represents. They dealt with orbital and aerial combat involving individual fighters, Land-Air Mechs (LAMs), and a later supplement added dropships and jumpships. AeroTech 1 would eventually become obsolete as it was replaced by BattleSpace, which expanded the content to include warships and even interstellar war. Aerotech 1 is largely obsolete.

AeroTech 2 displaced BattleSpace by fully integrating the aerospace and interstellar combat rules with the core BattleTech rules in a coherent way. Like the others in this section, these rules were eventually absorbed into the rules compilations books, which then became the content used to make the current corebooks. However, most of the orbital and interstellar combat elements have been moved to advanced rules books, specifically Strategic Operations and Interstellar Operations.

Never published as a box set, people had to be inventive for minis.

BattleTroops

The BattleTroops Rulebook contains the guidelines that allow players to conduct infantry-based small unit actions in the BattleTech Universe of the pre-Clan Invasion era in the Inner Sphere. Focusing on small unit actions, the system bridges the gap between the MechWarrior/RPG 1st or 2nd edition and the BattleMech-based Classic BattleTech, it uses an original set of rules and deals with several situations allowing a good range of versatility. The Total Warfare book currently includes rules for infantry alongside all other vehicle types, for any era.

You can still get BF2 as a standalone game in pdf format.

BattleForce

Published in 1989, based on BattleTech 2nd Edition, BattleForce is a boardgame that is set on a larger scale. Instead of individual vehicles, players control lance-sized units; the map scale and timescale per turn was enlarged accordingly. "A game of Small Unit Actions in the 31st Century", featuring mapsheets that, while printed to the same physical size as BattleTech hexes, represented 180 m of ground space (later changed to 90 m). Turns are similarly scaled up, representing 60 seconds of time. BattleForce was the first BattleTech game to introduce a game wide level of abstraction, grouping 'Mechs, vehicles and air support into single units at the Lance level. Doing away with record sheets and instead aggregating unit damage to a simple set of steps recorded on the counter itself, BattleForce is intended for the convenient staging of battles between regiment sized forces. BattleForce uses a unique type of playing piece that allows the use of limited military intelligence and playability to come together in one game. Three levels of information are available for each piece; whether it is a 'Mech, AeroSpace Fighter, or tank; whether a lance is recon, light, medium, etc.; and whether the piece represents green, regular, veteran, or elite experience level. This system recreates the fog of war, and calls for the intelligent use of your diverse forces. The BattleForce scale of play has carried through into the current Strategic Operations rulebook.

Although BF rules are still present in the corebooks, ever since Alpha Strike was developed, Catalyst has been moving away from these rules and the general tabletop wargame play of CBT in favor of AS for wargaming, preferring to leave CBT as the boardgame experience and BF as a vestigial remnant attached to that monolith. BF is a very different beast than AS however, with AS being an efficient way of running lots of units individually, rather than moving a few unites that represent many individuals in a scaled up and abstract form with limited information. As such, because BF still provides something unique to the franchise, especially in extremely large-scale campaign play, it is unlikely to disappear.

This is probably the most obsolete product in the article.

BattleSpace

This was a space combat game set in the BattleTech universe, replacing the outdated AeroTech. It expanded the latter's concepts and incorporated information from the DropShips and JumpShips sourcebook and other Clan Invasion era publications, focusing on WarShips instead of aerospace fighters. It would in turn later be replaced by AeroTech 2; the most recent and up-to-date edition of the aerospace and space combat rules is spread over the most recent set of rulebooks (Total Warfare, Tech Manual, Tactical Operations, and Strategic Operations). The rules have since undergone considerable change, to the point where the stats for capital ships as published in the original version of the Technical Readout: 3057 (which was conceived as a companion Technical Readout for BattleSpace) had to be changed.

The figures for this game were so bad, they put me off of the hobby for a decade.

Clix

Clix is a miniatures wargaming system developed by WizKids. It is characterized by the use of a dial wheel in the base of miniature figurines. The dial can be turned to reveal hidden information, representing the changing statistics of the figurine as the game progresses. This has been rebranded into the Combat Dial System by WizKids. It was used for the MechWarrior: Dark Age Miniature Set. There are currently no in-print games that use this system, and all such products are collectors items.

The sculpts for this game are derided for their low quality, both in the design and in the materials they were cast from. While admittedly some of the CBT sculpts aren't much better, it is important to note that a lot of that was based on art made in the 80s and early 90s because mecha anime really appeared in the West, while these were all made after 2000 when artists should have known better and the aesthetic in the Mechwarrior games proved as much. The plastic used was rubbery, which prevented it from holding fine details. As such, the models were blobby, which made it very difficult to repaint them and make it look good.

A map of the inner sphere, shortly before the clan invasion.

Lore Guide

Ok, so let's do a rundown of the lore of the setting, which we've kind of touched on a little earlier in this article. Let's start with an overview of what Battletech is all about.

The game's lore centers on the events of human civilization spreading out into the stars faster than is economically sustainable. Civilization then begins a centuries-long technological backslide as war destroys infrastructure and kills specialists. Central to these futuristic conflicts are the battlemechs, which are roughly 16 meter tall walking armored fighting vehicles. Many are humanoid in appearance. The people who operate these giant murder engines are called Mechwarriors. Battlemechs connect to their mechwarrior's mind using a neuro helmet, which allows its AI component to interpret the mechwarrior's commands and execute them, while also using their brain to help process information. This is how battlemechs have a center of balance and don't fall over the instant they get hit by a missile. Most war in the battletech universe (up to the Jihad era) is resolved by having small groups of battlemechs (called a lance or a star) and a few support units duke it out away from civilization. This format of war began because the technology was becoming unsustainably more advanced than the people who were maintaining and fielding it, and people just couldn't handle the consequences of destroying any more infrastructure. (After all, what good is it to conquer a planet and then not be able to profit from it because the people are now dying of starvation?) Because of this mode of combat, battlemechs become incredibly valuable family heirlooms, passed down through generations of warrior families. The total loss of a single battlemech and its Mechwarrior can be utterly crippling to a planet's ability to defend itself as an independent entity. Eventually, battlefield salvage of disabled battlemechs and other LosTech (lost technology) becomes more valuable than some planets. The mechwarriors themselves come to be a sort of higher class of people, roughly analogous to medieval knights, but even more flamboyant and with no code of honor.

Timeline

Ok, now that you have an idea of the premise, let's go over an overall timeline. The timeline is broken up into named eras. Each era technically represents a time period in which players can stage their games, changing which units are available to field, what factions exist, and who's fighting who and where and why. In total, there are 12 definitive eras, though they are grouped into larger era categories.

Age of War and Star League (2005 - 2780)

The story goes like this: Some guys invent a fusion reactor. GM gets into the space race and gets us to and back from Mars with a fusion rocket. Using ideas invented by the guys who made the fusion reactor theory, we invented jump drive. Within years, humanity had colonized systems in a sphere outward from Sol to 30 lightyears. From now on, this region is called the inner sphere. The Terran Hegemony couldn't handle the economic stress of sustaining all that mess, so it collapsed into infighting, and the space navy decided to just establish order with themselves as the leaders. That went OK, but also eventually wasn't going to work out on its own, leading to the formation of a new galactic civilization called the Star League, which was basically the Federation of Planets from Star Trek, but corrupt and dysfunctional because they forced the periphery states to join by threat of violence. 200 years of peace follow. This is a technological golden age for humanity. During that time, the Star League becomes feudal, which really is just a big warning sign for what happens next. (Hint: Those periphery states never got over being subjugated)

This era is technically divided into two eras, 2005-2570 is the Age of War, while 2571-2790 is Star League.

The Age of War, itself, is divided into 3 sub-eras of its own. 2005-2242 is the First Exodus. 2242-2398 is the Second Exodus. 2398-2370 is the Age of War proper.

Succession Wars (2781 - 3049)

The lord of the Star League and his entire family are killed in an attempted coup. Their superhero-general-guy wages a war to unseat the usurper. The successor states, the great houses of the Star League, disband the superhero general's army, then disband the star league, then get down to starting a new stone age the violent way. Superhero general packs up his followers and leaves to start his own pointless infighting but with hookers and blackjack. His son takes a portion of those jerks even farther away to try and rebuild something of what once was. During this period, there is a series of 4 major conflicts; the first, second, third, and fourth succession war, each respectively.

The succession Wars is divided into 2 lesser eras. 2781-2900 is the Early Succession Wars, while 2301-3049 are the Late Succession Wars.

Oddly, the four individual wars are not treated as separate eras unto themselves. The Late Succession Wars era actually begins partway through the 3rd SW. Their exact dates are as follows.

• The First Succession War spanned 2186-2821.
• The Second Succession War spanned 2830-2864.
• The Third Succession War spanned 2866-3025.
• The Fourth Succession War spanned 3028-3030.

Each succession war was separated by a short span of unstable peace. The era is as a whole, likewise, bookended by short periods of relative stability.

Clan Invasion (3050 - 3061)

A bunch of tribal warrior people calling themselves The Clans attack out of nowhere, interrupting some perfectly good infighting between near post-apocalyptic space empires. These guys are really good at war, and they have better tech in every single way. The successor states half-abandon their petty squabbles to face these new attackers, with two factions combining into the Federated Commonwealth. SURPRISE! The clans are actually the descendants of those jerks the Superhero General took out to the middle of nowhere a couple decades ago! They're trying to start a new Star League! WITH VIOLENCE! Who could resist such a tempting offer? They get their asses kicked because they can't economically sustain a long-term interstellar war. Their tech is awesome but expensive, and their soldiers are awesome but not easily replaced once lost.

Civil War (3062 - 3067)

The inner sphere manages to completely exterminate the most aggressive clan. The other clans take note. With the main threat dealt with, everyone goes back to killing each other, because why learn a lesson when you can keep banging your head against a brick wall instead?! That's pretty much it. The Federated Commonwealth splits up as each house is sucked into its own separate civil war, and then they go to war with each other again.

Jihad (3068 - 3080)

This'll take a touch of explanation. So back in the Clan Invasion days, the first point where the clans were turned back was at planet Tukayyid, where an organization called Comstar (Aptly nicknamed "Space AT&T" by the fans) canned them hard. Comstar is a business and a religion that focuses on providing interstellar communications across the sphere and periphery. Their goal is to get the inner sphere fighting so bad, they can swoop in with a new Star League of their own as the galaxy's saviors. The Jihad is when a splinter faction loses their patience and just start bombing shit. They use nukes for the first time in over a millennium. For the first time in centuries, full scale war happens and the people of the galaxy are horrified.

Dark Age (3081-3150)

Things start to look up in the aftermath of the Jihad. A new IS wide government called the Republic of the Sphere forms from the chaos that was the heart of the inner sphere. Then things go pear-shaped in a hurry as interstellar communications collapse and takes all of civilization with it. Everyone goes back to war. (This is why you pay your phone bill!) That's why it's called a dark age, not because of a loss of tech, but because the communications shut down essentially leaves everyone in the dark. For some reason, they decide gothic robot football players is a cool aesthetic for all their mechs.

This is divided into 2 lesser eras. 3081–3130 is the Formation of the Republic. 3131–3150 is the Dark Age proper.

ilClan (3150+)

In 3150, the Republic of the Sphere was crumbling inside of the Fortress Republic after infighting between various Inner Sphere, Clan, and Republic splinter factions, within and without the Republic. An unidentified clan would take this opportunity and make a race towards Terra to restore the Star League with a Clan-based styling. The ilClan is the Clan term for the "Clan of all Clans", determined by which Clan manages to capture the cradle of humanity: Terra. The senior Khan of the ilClan would then become ilKhan in perpetuity, and all future ilKhans would be chosen from the ilClan. In essence, the concept of ilClan determines which Clan the new First Lord of the resurrected Star League would descend from.

This is the current era in development by CGL. It has no definitive end state yet.

This is, without a doubt, the most complex part of the game.

Factions

The most complex part of the game's lore, however, are the different factions. See, unlike other franchises with intentional fanbase division, the factions in Battletech are not rigid and permanent. They change, blend, and mutate based on the era of play. Even within a single era, factions might change forms between the beginning and end of that time period. This makes talking about the factions really difficult. To complicate matters, the inner sphere isn't the entirety of settled space, there are other regions beyond the sphere, called the periphery, that also have their own factions. And to make things even worse, there are lesser factions that act as components of or overlap with the greater factions, such as specific mercenary units or rebel organizations! I'll... try to go over it all. In simplified terms. And I'm not going into sub-factions, either, just the big players.

Capellan Confederation (House Liao)

Originally settled by people from Terra’s Asian nations, one can see the roots of Chinese and Russian culture in people of House Liao’s Capellan Confederation. The smallest of the five Great Houses after centuries of unrelenting warfare, House Liao has come to embrace the harsh reality of police state politics and ruthless control to ensure their nation’s survival against its enemies. The Maskirovka, the Capellan secret police, keeps a cold and calculating eye on the Confederation’s people, who must earn their rights to be citizens, rather than expect such privileges from birth.

Nearly shattered by House Davion in the Fourth Succession War, the Confederation teetered on the edge of extinction until its latest Chancellor, Sun-Tzu Liao, rose to form the Trinity Alliance with the Magistracy of Canopus and the Taurian Concordat and reclaim much of what his realm lost in the Fourth Succession War. After bringing the renegade St. Ives Compact back into the fold during his wildly successful Xin Sheng political movement, Sun-Tzu’s reign promised the Confederation a return to its former glory—until the Word of Blake Jihad erupted and soon engulfed his state in a new Sphere-spanning war.

Although the Confederation effectively stands alone against the Blakeist menace, with only its allies in the Magistracy of Canopus for support, House Liao has maintained its determination to survive the worst that war can throw at it. For the people of this realm, the needs of the state will always take precedence over those of its individuals. This fact is as evident in the seemingly fanatical nature of the Capellan soldiery as it is in the open market communism that dominates the nation’s economy.

Draconis Combine (House Kurita)

Patterned on the culture of feudal Japan, and ruled by a hierarchy of warlords loyal to the shogunate ideals of the ruling House Kurita, the Draconis Combine is a realm whose warriors and citizenry embrace the tenets of bushido—the ancient Japanese Way of the Warrior. To the people of the Combine, honor and duty are the very cornerstones of society, without which there can be nothing. While these social mores have made the Combine’s military one of the most fearsome and fanatical on the battlefield, it was the modernist reforms of Coordinator Theodore Kurita that transformed the DCMS into an even more deadly force.

Hard pressed during the Clan invasion—to the point where their own capital of Luthien teetered on the brink of a Clan occupation—the “Dragon” repaid its would-be conquerors by leading the charge to Annihilate Clan Smoke Jaguar. Today the Combine is riddled with internal enemies in the form of the subversive Black Dragon Society, while fighting a war of attrition against the Word of Blake. Thus, Coordinator Hohiro Kurita and his supreme warlord, Kanrei Kiyomori Minamoto, now struggle to achieve the twin goals of unifying their realm while turning back the deadly Word of Blake offensive.

A particularly harsh and xenophobic society, the Draconis Combine maintains a socialist market economy and a rigid leadership divided into social castes. Militarily, the Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery continues to struggle with the competing ideals of personal honor and glory, and the need to function as a unit against a determined enemy. Thus, in battle it is as common to see a lone Combine warrior challenge a superior force as it is to see entire formations combine their might to bring down an enemy.

Federated Suns (House Davion)

Seen by many as a realm that glorifies warfare, House Davion’s Federated Suns has one of the Inner Sphere’s most capable military forces, and their First Prince is seen as one of the mightiest rulers in the Sphere. Primarily settled and ruled by descendants of Terra’s Western Europe, the Federated Suns has adopted a nobility system based on feudal England and France, and professes the ideals of personal freedom and rule of law above all else.

House Davion’s archenemies are its neighbors, House Liao’s Capellan Confederation and House Kurita’s Draconis Combine. During the Fourth Succession War, the Federated Suns united with House Steiner’s Lyran Commonwealth to create the Federated Commonwealth. Under this union, Houses Davion and Steiner conquered half the Confederation, and went on to challenge the might of House Kurita in the War of 3039. But this alliance eventually sundered during the FedCom Civil War in the 3060s. Now threatened by the Word of Blake and their Jihad, the Federated Suns once more stands beside its old enemies, united against a common threat.

The Federated Suns is very liberal when it comes to personal freedom and trade, with a free market economy that allows its citizens to pursue personal profit. Militarily, they prefer combined-arms warfare and strategic initiative, valuing the virtues of logistics and maneuvering over brute force and savagery.

Free Worlds League (House Marik)

Unlike the other feudal realms of the Inner Sphere, the Free Worlds League is—at least on paper—a democracy. Although largely run by the Marik family for centuries (due to various circumstances and the provisions of an “emergency resolution” passed in the late 2700s), the League is actually a conglomerate of many smaller states and planets that allied long ago, and stands today as the oldest of the Successor States.

Though internally divisive by nature and riddled with bureaucracy, the League has existed in relative peace for many years, and even escaped the worst of the Fourth Succession War. A civil war nearly sundered the realm in the 3030s, but the League recovered and gradually rose in stature over the decades since, fighting only a small and very effective war in 3057 while harboring the breakaway Word of Blake after that group’s formation. Becoming the arms dealer for the Inner Sphere after the Clans’ arrival, the Free Worlds’ industry and economy boomed, but with the start of the Jihad, even the people of the League were not immune. Shocked to learn that their Captain-General, Thomas Marik, was actually an impostor set on the throne by ComStar many decades ago, the League has begun to unravel at its seams. Today, at least three leaders have risen with a claim to the title of Captain-General, putting the entire realm on the verge of collapse.

Defining itself as a nation of tolerance and open-mindedness, it comes as little surprise that the Free Worlds League also maintains an open market capitalist economy, which has helped to make it one of the most economically and socially progressive powers in the Inner Sphere. However, with a military made up of regional forces, the performance of its troops can vary with the political situation at home.

Lyran Commonwealth/Alliance (House Steiner)

Originally known as the Lyran Commonwealth, House Steiner’s Lyran Alliance is widely recognized as a nation of merchants and industrialists first, and warriors a distant second. Settled and dominated by predominantly Germanic and Scottish cultures, and ruled by the Steiner family through a combination of political intrigue and brute economic force, the Lyran state is united in the pursuit of status and wealth.

Often on the defensive in the Succession Wars, House Steiner’s peace initiatives sparked the creation of the Federated Commonwealth, but when the Clans invaded, the Lyran half of that alliance suffered the bulk of their assault. The strain of this event and others led to the sundering of the Federated Commonwealth, the birth of the Lyran Alliance, and the eruption of the FedCom Civil War. In the wake of that conflict, the battered Alliance hoped to reclaim its lost glories under a new Archon, only to see the start of the Word of Blake Jihad firsthand with a surprise assault on their own capital world of Tharkad.

Like the Federated Suns, the Lyran state enjoys an open market economy that boasts centuries of stability and success, boosted by the presence of some of the Inner Sphere’s most industrialized worlds. Although the reforms of the Federated Commonwealth era improved Lyran martial prowess, the influence of the socalled “social generals” and widespread confidence in “bigger equals better” firepower has returned House Steiner’s realm to a time when it was widely seen as militarily inept. Indeed, the Lyran solution to most problems is typically negotiation, barter, or covert action—but with their resources and wealth, the armies of House Steiner can often field heavier and more numerous forces than their enemies, producing a virtual wall of steel against an enemy advance

Free Rasalhague Republic / Rasalhague Dominion

Scandinavian cultural template. Created from wayward provinces on both sides of the Kurita/Steiner border after the Fourth Succession War. At the time of its inception it was the sixth major Inner Sphere power, just after the five Successor States, but it was overrun by the Clans save for six worlds shortly after its creation. Eventually rejoined with its occupied territories in the formation of the Rasalhague Dominion.

Mercenaries

Mercenaries are an important part of the BattleTech fictional universe; the Inner Sphere and Periphery have many private military companies.

A Mercenary is a soldier for hire, a warrior who fights not for a particular cause or goal but for material gain. In the Inner Sphere, private, contracted military units have been doing a lot of the fighting. Some are only in it for the cash, some for principle, but, whatever the reason, mercenary forces run the gamut from some the most disreputable to some the most elite troops available. Many mercenary companies do not survive their first battle, but dozens have gone on to become successful, trusted units that form key parts of their employers' defenses.

As the various mercenary factions are independent and competing businesses, it is quite rare for them to work as a faction together. Nonetheless, some of the companies are quite powerful and their actions have influenced the history of the known universe.

Mercenary companies vary in size from very small platoons or lance-sized units up to forces comprising multiple regiments with supporting warships; backed by arms-manufacturers and the like.

Attitudes differ among mercenary companies. Some like to live in the spotlight, actively pursuing battle, whether for fame or for money, such as Ace Darwin's Whipits, the Bad Dreams, the Black Heart Roses, Blanc's Coyotes, Black Omen, the Fighting Shamrocks, etc. Others prefer to avoid the limelight, like Vinson's Vigilantes, the Broadstreet Bullies, Black Angus’s Boys, Clifton's Rangers, The Furies, Heavyhell Raisers, the Hsien Hotheads, etc. Still more serve the wishes and commands of tyrants.

The Clans

There are 23 official clans, though which ones are extant vary given the era. The Clans of BattleTech were originally descended from the self-exiled remnants of the Star League Defense Force (SLDF), who had departed the Inner Sphere after Stefan Amaris brought about the downfall of the Star League. General Aleksandr Kerensky led his forces to a hidden destination far from the Great Houses because he believed that a catastrophic war was inevitable, one that even the once mighty Star League army would be powerless to stop. After much infighting between the members of the former SLDF, Aleksandr's son Nicholas Kerensky took command of the exiles, reorganizing them into twenty Clans of warriors leading and protecting their attendant civilian castes.

While the Inner Sphere was mired in the destructive Succession Wars, the Clans experienced a technological renaissance. When they returned to the Inner Sphere, 250 years after their ancestors' departure, the Great Houses were mostly powerless to stop the massive Clan Invasion. But after their loss at Tukayyid, internal tensions within the Clans and an alliance between the Great Houses drew the invasion to a standstill.

After the Truce of Tukayyid had dissolved along with the reborn Star League, the Clans would be permanently fractured as a whole. Instead resuming the rightful trek on Terra, a civil war based on territorial status and resentment was started among the Clan Homeworlds. This war would cause the remaining Invading Clans to be ejected out of the homeworlds as the Home Clans would abandon the old Crusader-Warden views for more brutal and self-protective ones instead, seeing the Inner Sphere as irredeemably tainted. With both sides swearing off all contact from each other, the hatred has now shifted from one of ideology to territorial.

The clans are as follows: 

1. Blood Spirit
2. Burrock
3. Cloud Cobra
4. Coyote
5. Diamond Shark
6. Fire Mandrill
7. Ghost Bear
8. Goliath Scorpion
9. Hell's Horses
10. Ice Hellion
11. Jade Falcon
12. Jade Wolf
13. Mongoose
14. Nova Cat
15. Smoke Jaguar
16. Snow Raven
17. Star Adder
18. Steel Viper
19. Stone Lion
20. Widowmaker
21. Wolf
22. Wolf-In-Exile
23. Wolverine

ComStar

This quasi-religious sect evolved out of the Star League's Communications Ministry under Jerome Blake. Controlling all interstellar communication and acting as a supranational arbitrator, mediator and banking house, they regard themselves as the saviors of humanity and keepers of LosTech. Later revealed as devious schemers who ruthlessly misused their trusted position to manipulate others, they have secretly maintained a strong army with cutting edge technology.

The radical splinter group Word of Blake eventually separates from the order to form an independent sect. Word of Blake later instigates the Jihad, a cataclysmic total war against all of humanity and secular ComStar.

Resources

Ok, so let's pretend you've actually read all that, and now you want to get in on the hobby. Cool. Here's a bunch of links to get you rolling. I always try yo make something available that my readers can use.

Catalyst Store

This first link is pretty obvious. That said, this isn't actually the best place to buy BT stuff. It's run by a third party company, and they don't do a very good job at it. Apparently, Catalyst isn't in much of a financial position to fix that situation at the moment.

DriveThru RPG

If you really want to buy Battletech products, this is the place to go. It has pretty much everything that's still considered contemporary and valid. It has very old stuff and very new stuff. Almost all in PDF of course, but some- SOME -products are available in hardcopy. As always with the current iteration of the game, very limited quantities if you want to hold an actual book you didn't print out yourself.

Iron Wind Metals

While Catalyst does produce, on rare occasion, plastic miniatures, these are in very limited number and are not their main production focus. Rather, if you want minis, you'll have to go through this company. They make miniatures even for mechs that haven't seen an official publication in 15+ years! If you want to expand your collection, especially if you want non-mech vehicles, this is the place to be. The only mechs they don't cast are the ones FASA got sued into oblivion over.

Battletech.com

This one is a bit of a tragedy. Ostensibly the main franchise website, it is an example of the decaying element of the franchise. It is randomly out of date, full of broken links and missing pictures, half the website has a different layout... it's just kind of a mess and really shows its age. That said, there's still an important element here. New To Battletech? has free PDFs and advice to people who want to get started in the hobby. Not sure the game is for you? Check out the free introductory rules!

Sarna

This is one of the most important communities in the BT hobby. It is a news site that keeps tabs on the franchise and its makers, a wiki that collects both in-universe and real-life game lore, and a forum for gamers to gather and talk about the game.

Master Unit List

Is a categorical listing of every game piece ever published for Battletech, including all variants. It includes a printable record card to use any unit in Alpha Strike, and also a BV table for using the unit in more formal or tournament style play of Classic BT. The only downside is that you kind of need to have some idea of what you're searching for before it shows any results at all.

Mech Factory

This is an android app that contains technical readout information and printable record sheets for pretty much every unit on the Master Unit List. You'll need a Bluetooth capable phone and printer to make use of the record sheets, but other than that, this is an indispensable resource for people who play the game a lot.

Flechs

Is a newcomer to the hobby, but is pretty damn cool. They make visual gaming aids- including an app that has automated and interactive record sheets! Everything they're making is pretty new, and who knows if any of it will take off. I hope it all does! If you come to this articles a few years from now, this might either all be central to the hobby or a faded memory attached to a broken link.

Camo Specs

This site is full of painting guides for in-universe factions and such. Great for people who are in the hobby for the miniatures aspect.

The Demo Team

This is the group of people who are responsible for the official public play aspect of Catalyst Games Labs products. It is nowhere near as organized (or as disorganized) as other similar official play programs, such as the D&D Adventurers League. As I write this, I imagine these folks are getting pretty antsy as we near a full year in covid lockdown. Hope they're ready to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps when the cons start up again. They'll probably need volunteers then too.

Inner Sphere Atlas

This is a lore archive website that gives detailed information about all of the inhabited planets in the inner sphere. Some pages are more detailed than others. Looks like its maps component depended on flash to function. We shall see if the loss of flash will mark the end or rebirth of this website in the coming years.

Interstellar Cartography

But never fear! While Inner Sphere Atlas has the raw data about every planet in the game, this interactive inner sphere map can show you how it all connects! You can even choose your era!

Battletech on Steam

This is the currently available and x64 compatible Battletech tactical game. It is not the same as the board game, but it's also fun and a good way to get your stompy mecha fix without turning to FPS games like MechWarrior.