Mail Room: Battletech

When we played Battletech back in the 80s and 90s the thing that killed the game for us was the Clan Invasion. We lost interest after that game since it just seemed to be, "Battletech: More Numbers Edition!" The incredibly high damages and ranges took this from a dinner-table tactical wargame to one where you needed two 3x6 folding tables shoved together.

In the original game where a hit by an LRM 5 mattered (1 to 5 damage), we saw dual-wielding ER PPCs (up to 30 damage) as the game-changing weapon of choice (that Clan ER PPC damage may have since changed, as I hear). The record sheets became huge masses of bubbles for armor, record-keeping became tedious, and we felt the original game we loved was gone. The same thing happened at the end of the Car Wars game, as the armors got more complicated and heavier, the weapon damage scaled up considerably to make convention play faster.

More numbers and more damage do not make a game more fun.

And the Inner Sphere factions just weren't worth playing, since they were set at a lower technology level. All our investment in the factions and conflicts dried up when the "Space Nazis from Beyond" showed up in their cool and better toys. I kid, they aren't Nazis, but to wage a massive, coordinated, multi-front, war of conquest all at the same time seems pretty "space fazcist" to me. That is how our original campaign ended, with our campaign transitioning into fighting the evil Clans who in the end went scorched earth and almost became like the alien invaders in a 50's sci-fi movie.

Since Inner Sphere mechs were junk to the Clans, we saw the unified armies of the Inner Sphere switch to tanks, jets, helicopters, infantry, and combined arms tactics on a massive scale. The Clans lost this fight since a tank with a diesel engine was cheap, disposable, and could be massed in greater numbers than complicated mechs. Helicopters with missiles could stay out of range, watch, and then make coordinated passes with many getting rear hits. Yes, the losses were high, but the Inner Sphere could afford to lose much more than the Clans.

And the era of the mech died with the Clans in our game.

But it was fun in a WW2 army vs. Kaiju sort of fight, kind of like the Ogre board game.

What else could we do? We despised them for ruining our original and long-running campaign. We had all the classic NPCs in there too (from the novels and videogames) and the tension ran high with missions and games mattering in the original faction balance. Now, like the game's numbers, there were way too many factions and sub-factions, and the stories just became muddied and confusing. Our game never recovered from this, and we felt it was the end of the story.

The only thing about the Clan Era that was cool was the mech models - but not the stats or gear.

We felt the game became a stand-off game, much like a Harpoon where long-range firepower ruled the giant play tables. Gone were the days of light mechs using speed and jump jets to race in close and deliver a critical and game-changing blow with just small lasers or machine guns at close range. The super-heavy mechs, complicated and slow, were the stars of the show. In the old days keeping a force of light, medium, and heavy mechs in your company was viable. In the Clan Era, we felt like this was everyone rolling in with M1 Battle Tanks and playing battleship blast-a-thons.

Fun? For a short time, yes, but the original game's charm and balance between light, medium, and heavy units was totally gone for us. When a Clan Mech could vaporize a Locust in one shot we quit. Granted, this could happen in the old game, but it was way more difficult and the Locust was more dangerous to a heavy mech when played right.

It is good to see the original game back, with the original balance and viable company deployments. I am getting into this game again, and I want to put this on an alternate timeline where the Clans never existed.