HOSTILE

Hostile is sort of like the "grown up" version of Cepheus Engine. The base Cepheus Engine rules are this generic, semi-campy romp through classic 2d6 sci-fi adventuring. I love the base game for modding and as the universal system from which all else comes. Hostile is the 1970s retro-future serious alternative to Cehpeus Engine, where everything is gritty, toned-down, and realism is emphasized over the lighthearted.

The technology base is sort of a 1970s retro-future welded-together mess of cool, and the game goes from there into an Earth-based 2d6 sci-fi campaign. There is a heavy Alien influence here, but it isn't everything this game has to offer, and frankly, you can play this game without the space monsters and have just as much fun. There are other great influences here as well, including Blade Runner, The Thing, Total Recall, Event Horizon, The Abyss, Outland, The Expanse, and Pitch Black. Even TV shows like Ice Road Truckers or Deadliest Catch are inspirations for this world and the adventures it can provide.

Ordinary space workers in an industrialized future. An incredibly dangerous universe. Plenty of alien monsters nobody understands. A retro-future filled with cynicism, conspiracies, hidden agendas, and quick death.

Again, you could say this is just an Alien wannabe game, but it really isn't and deserves a little more respect and attention. Alien is just one series in the genre, and this genre is bigger than one franchise. It is like saying all superheroes are Marvel or DC and full stop, and you miss out on roleplaying games like Champions or TV series like The Boys. This is "retro-fi" at its finest, and tries to strike a balance as a "generic retro-fi RPG" the same way D&D tries to be a "generic fantasy RPG." And at times I feel I want the genre to move beyond Alien and break free from that creative stagnation, no matter how cool the movies still are.

There are six main themes to the game:

1. The heroes are everyday workers in space.
2. The future is heavily industrialized.
3. Everything is dangerous and every job is high-pressure.
4. The universe is populated by humans and space monsters.
5. The future is retro-future dirty, full of retro-tech, repaired, second-hand, and used.
6. The outlook is cynicism. Conspiracies, manipulation, lies, and dirty secrets are everywhere.

The Alien RPG is cool, but where Hostile shines is it is a few levels more generic and allows for all sorts of non-Alien concepts and creatures to be introduced. I could mod in psionic rules to Hostile and it would work, whereas in Alien it would feel really strange. I could throw "1950s sci-fi movie monster of the week" style adventures at the characters, like a blob, giant ants, giant worms, parasites that attach to people and control minds, space vampires, silicate rock creatures, or the monster out of The Thing, and it all just works.

I would still use Alien for one-shots or to introduce people to horror RPGs, just because it is so recognizable and accessible. But the market for RPGs also seems to be flooded with RPGs based on TV and movie properties, and I can only play so many of these before I quit playing all of them and just want something simple that does more than one thing. For now, I am done buying licensed RPGs and want experiences that break free from the source material and give me room for my own creativity.

Could I play all of the above with Cepheus Engine or even Traveller? Yes, but Hostile oozes flavor and gives you tons of specific gear, ships, weapons, armor, and a complete setting that fits the theme. I have this game next to Battletech on my game shelf and ooh that sounds like a cool peanut-butter-and-chocolate combination.

Battletech with retro 70s tech and a true hard science and survival mentality? That is cool, and removes some of that gleaming and brand new sheen from the universe and puts it back on a more humanistic and realistic grounding that I love. When the future gets too clean and plastic it gets too sterile and uninteresting. Even the original Star Wars movies had that gritty and clunky retro-tech feeling, and after a while, you get designers who want to change the look and feel to a cleaner aesthetic and you lose not only the feeling of the universe but a huge part of the story and meaning.

Cepheus Engine is always my "source code" for modding and game creation, but Hostile is the best implementation of that 1970s sci-fi game, but it breaks free of the original movies in the genre and gives you the room to put your own spin and creativity into the universe.

Fiction: BattleTech: Redemption Rites

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09ZP7RTP2/

How did I ever think the Clans could be presented as the good guys?

...and spoiler warnings for the above book...

So I decided to get back into the universe with some fiction, and I just started reading one of the books set in the most current era of the universe. I am only at the beginning of this one. Still, so far, we have a lot of post-battle cleanup by a new commander of Wolf's Dragoons, a legendary unit that I feel by this point has become a corporate "in name only" franchise compared to the original.

That is the problem with nostalgia unless you keep rebooting your new characters seem either like soft copies of the originals, or the entire thing you are trying to sell the latest version of seems like the Wall Street version of "Idea Incorporated" and the whole thing feels chewed over by marketers for car and food commercials.

So on one side, the new CEO of Wolf's Dragoons Incorporated is cleaning the house after 80% of the unit died and making deals. Good stuff, sort of the meat and potatoes of a good BattleTech story, but on a bit of a macro scale for my first book. I know I am jumping in on end, so at this time, we are likely only planning D-Day-style invasions rather than the more minor, more intimate local battles that I prefer.

The thing is, I don't really feel anything for this new CEO other than, well, I guess he got the job after Enron failed; good luck. What do you do? Do they have money to rebuild? Will others with a bent against them reach out and strike? Are there mechs and supplies to buy after the big war on Earth? Should they just dissolve the company and move on? None of that is really answered, other than, well, okay, let's magically rebuild everything and get a new cast of characters. I wanted that harrowing flight to get the heck out of Dodge, that taking stock moment of what we have left, and that Independence Day pep talk. Some drama. Some revenge. Some tension.

We got a bunch of meetings instead.

On the other side, we have the Clans.

They are like a wargamer's idea of how the ideal fascist society should work. Really, they are just horrible. Grown in tanks, genetic purity, trial by combat, leaders are chosen by action, entitled, somewhat spoiled, okay really spoiled, somehow greatness is passed down in genes, eternal war focused, zero freedom, no art, no journalism,  no love, little emotion, state industry, just a mess of one-note space Nazis.

They are even worse than the Empire in Star Wars.

Maybe this is just how the book presents them, but to get angry about "but I didn't get to fight for Terra!" feels less like a warrior caste and more like a spoiled brat caste. With the "no alien races" rule in BattleTech, I feel they come very close. They are like this cloned race of genetically superior humans, and I feel this falls outside of BattleTech lore and feeling just a little. They might as well be green Martians.

"We are here to reclaim the real Jade Falcon Clan - for Mars!"

I get the feeling the real people in control of the Clans are these secretive industrial concerns who let the soldiers play and do their battle trials and pageantry. At the same time, they sit back and clock C-Bills in war profits as the warrior caste believes that the purity of combat gives them the right to rule - and they really have no power at all when those in the back rooms say yea or nay to an idea.

And that is how fascist states really work.

I don't even see how a society like that works and sustains interstellar commerce unless there is a "Clan Cabal" controlling the unholy marriage of state and industry behind the scenes. You work for the state, produce for the state, cheer for state propaganda, or big evil Clan soldier guy comes and steps all over your factories and city populations in a mech. Support the war effort, comrade! Glory to our great warriors! The war is justified and for our greater society!

Just imagining peoples' lives on planets conquered by them gives me the creeps.

The endgame of a fascist society is ALWAYS war. Industry supplies them with weapons and propaganda, while the state provides the warm bodies to fill the front lines. War is the last thing that holds this mess together as the host body of the decaying state dies and is torn apart by internal forces.

I am still reading this through, but ugh, what a mess.

I should be happy there are good and bad guys in this universe, but I had forgotten how horrid the Clans really were. If the Clans were Kerensky's legacy, he would rank up there with Stalin or Hitler. Who cares if they have all the cool toys and mechs at this point? It is like getting excited about a Panzer tank; yeah, cool, but...

Now I see why many like the classic era.

Good book, but wow, what a mess. Not one I would recommend people read if they wanted to get involved with "low level" BattleTech, you know, a book that covers lower-level mercenary life, the day-to-day, the getting contracts, and keeping your head down sort of life. Don't piss off the big players, local governments, house forces, and larger mercenary outfits. This is more like the sweeping intergalactic big brush war stories with generals in charge and the grand macro strategy.

Wargames: Talking Cheese

I watched BattleTech YouTube videos, and I came across a few that started talking cheese. And I saw this in Car Wars, starfighter games, Starfleet Battles, and it is a phenomenon that is especially common in wargames where you can design units.

You can design units to cheese the game mechanics, that is, to take advantage of the rules.

And then, when you talk cheese, you try to make those exploits make sense in reality. Especially if the designs are not even militarily practical or make any sense. Let's take the heaviest weapon in the game, put it on the lightest vehicle or mech we can manage, give it a few token points of armor, and field dozens of them when a scenario calls for a balanced force.

Who needs 300 tons of battle mechs in a scenario when you could have 30 ten-ton armored cars with lasers? Just swarm the other side with tons of cheese, multiple attacks by the buckets full of dice, and then say, "If the rules let me do it, this is a viable tactic."

There would be no need for battle mechs in this universe if that was a viable tactic.

Everyone would be doing it.

BattleTech needs a little suspension of disbelief for the universe to work. Given what we know today? Find them with drones and hit the slow, lumbering behemoths with laser-guided artillery shells. Also, in our endgame BattleTech campaign, we did just that, gave up on mechs, and designed cheap ground vehicles one side could field and lose dozens of and watched the mechs get picked apart with massed fire and artillery.

Yes, they were vulnerable to motive hits, but with this many and this cheap, who cares?

You can hide an AFV in a destroyed house or in a group of trees, while a mech is hard to conceal - and it needs to keep moving to survive. And due to the number of units involved, we could use maneuver and send a force around and hit them from the rear while still keeping them engaged on the front flank. Tons of cheap artillery were deadly.

The games were also unfun and slogged to play.

But we "won."

On a side note, some wargames are designed around the cheese tactic of swarming a big unit, and they do it exceptionally well. Steve Jackson Games' Ogre is probably the best example. But this game is designed around this concept, and it is a blast to play that giant, lumbering, slowly disintegrating monster as it trundles towards its objective. It is also a blast to play the defenders and futilely try to stop the beast in its tracks, knowing you can't destroy the beast outright, but target its tracks and try to slow it down or stop it and leave it as a monument of death that could still kill you if you got near.

BattleTech is different.

Yes, you could take a pickup truck, mount one massive long-range rocket, and send it into battle in the real world. Irregular forces do that. But no professional army does. That does not fit into any modern army's order of battle or tactics unless it is an irregular force, and you don't see defense contractors selling them. BattleTech has this code of honor and chivalry, and it also assumes a more ordered and substantial structure to house forces and mercenary forces.

Most military forces field balanced units that can deal with various threats in war. You can undoubtedly cheese the other side if you have perfect knowledge. But these units are often operating in hostile territory, without great intelligence, and need to be able to deal with a variety of threats equally.

When setting up scenarios, I tend to stay away from cheese units and tactics and use the more BattleTech frame of mind and thinking. I want to be in the commander's shoes when making those deployment decisions. The games are typically more enjoyable, and I feel I am more playing in the real universe of mech warriors than I am on some tabletop, wondering how I can cheese the rules to win easily.

Battletech: Solid History and Timeline

No aliens. No space magic. No stereotypical evil space empires. The eras are what they are, and they can't really be changed.

Life is hard, war sucks, the universe is a dirty and violent place and that can't be changed either.

Mercenaries take cash payment for death and war.

The front lines shift and change, and planets that were spared from war for a while are put under the gun. Other places lie in ruins, and civilization pulls itself from the rubble to rebuild. And often enough, the cycle starts again.

There is this rock-solid model to Battletech that draws me in. I am not going to have my expectations subverted and the investment I made in the game or franchise pulled out from under me and the game ruined because of one new story, product, or era. I can go back to the well-supported and existing eras and play there. Or say the new one never happened. I can go back to classic and play there, and say the Clan invasion never happens. I can play in the Clan era and say the future is open.

And there isn't much "silly stuff" in the setting that can change things, like aliens, psionics, or space magic. Advanced technology is about it, but that can be ignored like an unwanted era.

This contract with the players and fans is what I love about the setting, and it is replacing lots of other sci-fi franchises as my sci-fi genre of choice. Nothing is going to be changed for me by a billion-dollar company looking to extract more streaming service money from me and cause disgusting social media drama to drum up hype. Battletech is solid, well-established, stable, and fun. I don't need anyone telling me why I should be a fan, or making me feel I need to join a bandwagon, the game is great on its own.

The players are great too.

The complexity can be controlled. I can say "this box only" or pull in rules from the advanced rules books. I could run a role-playing campaign from the rules in the Beginner Box plus my ground-game RPG of choice and have fun like this was a game of Basic D&D with battle robots using simplified rules. At any level with many combinations of battle-set plus RPG rule-set, this is fun.

And the game is moddable, plays fast, and isn't a huge investment in learning rules, books, or space. The games do not take much time. To set up a game, grab figures and a map and go. I can plug in almost any roleplaying system to run the out-of-mech ground game, from GURPS to Aftermath to Cepheus Deluxe. Genesys or Cypher would work great. Savage Worlds if that makes you happy. Twilight:2000 with some modding. Or the official roleplaying game.

Right now, I like Cepheus Deluxe since in tech and feel it works very well, and the skills are 1-to-1 with the piloting and gunnery skills. The career paths also make interesting characters, and are compatible with a universe like this and add depth to it outside the mechs. Scouts, ambassadors, pilots, ground soldiers,  merchants, criminals, and all sorts of personalities fill in the places between mech battles very nicely. I may make a few career tables based on the ones given to be more mech dedicated and use the more mech-focused skills, but if I allow swaps for skills I feel work better the charts work well as-is.

The roleplaying system should be simple and stay out of the way of the main attraction, the Battletech rules, and the mech fights. The RPG rules ideally set up the reason "why" the next fight is happening, and give you the "inside the hex" view during missions where pilots need to get out of mechs and rescue a VIP in an installation before fleeing to safety and getting covered by a skirmish force.

Right now this game is competing with Starfinder as my sci-fi game of choice. In Starfinder you have this artificial "video game" style of powering up a starship between battles, and it feels a bit programmed and on rails. There, the bold and iconic characters are the stars of the show, like the Guardians of the Galaxy movie.

Battletech does a better wargame job than Starfinder's ship battles, by far. But the characters aren't really the stars of the show here, it is the mechs and the stories of battles you play on the board. As a wargamer at heart, I find more enjoyment in the razor-thin tactical battles of Battletech than I do the level-appropriate and programmed d20 starship battles of Starfinder. I feel if I lose mechs and pilots in Battletech, life can go on for the company, and it will hurt. In Starfinder, it is hard to lose your only ship and have the game continue.

There is a real cost to a game of Battletech. Those index cards with the characters on them are on the line. The stakes for winning and losing are high. Making a choice to sacrifice a mech, and possibly a beloved pilot, to achieve an objective is going to really hurt. Is it the right choice?

That type of game isn't for everyone, but it grips me in a way an easy-heal, hard-to-die dungeon game does not. Even Starfinder feels weaker by comparison, like many d20 games evolved into this player entitlement mode to make things easy and keep you in the game and buying books at the expense of character loss or any risk. Yes, Starfinder has mechs, but they are not Battletech by any stretch of the imagination.

This is the real thing.

I am happier here. I don't feel like I am being pandered to, tossed a kitchen sink of pop culture and told to make it work, or playing a game that wants to be something else.

And the fights mean something.

Battletech: Beginner Box, part 2

It feels strange to think wargames like Battletech are more accessible than most tabletop roleplaying games. When you look at the page count of the main rulebooks, we have:

• Battletech Beginner Box - 12-page rulebook
• Battletech: a Game of Armored Combat - 56-page rulebook
• Battletech: Clan Invasion - 32-page rulebook

That is 100 pages total of rules for the core "mainstream support" version of the game, with all options (and a few record sheets). You go to tabletop dungeon games, and you are talking 400-600 pages for the player's manuals and over 1000 for the core books of the game. Like Pathfinder 1e (and 2e is getting there), some games are thousands of pages spread across many "collectors market" books.

Granted, the core rules of more tabletop RPGs are probably less than those 100 pages of Battletech core rules, but the bloat in dungeon games in both fluff and options is orders of magnitude larger than an average wargame. To get down below 100 pages for a set of dungeon rules, you need to play B/X, and I see why people do. If you like B/X, I feel Battletech is an excellent next step for tabletop gaming since it shares that "core simplicity" model while being endlessly expandable with imagination.

And Battletech is more of a tactical game than your typical dungeon game, except for something like Dungeon Fantasy or D&D 4E. Being more in that wargame mold, Dungeon Fantasy has a pretty low page count, an incredible accomplishment.

You can expand Battletech with esoteric rulebooks for the edge-case situations and battle styles, VTOL, spacecraft, and other "non-core" battles - but I don't see even all those options books taking more than a half-shelf of space. Still, the core rules of the 56-page core game and 32-page Clan expansion are the heart of the game since the beginner rules are a cut-down subset and not used for much more than learning, so those 12 pages really don't count once you start playing.

Most of the space taken by Battletech is figure storage.

And since the core rules do not have that dungeon game bloat, you can keep the entire game in your head with minimal reference. Another great thing about Battletech is determining the "challenge level" of battles is trivially easy. In contrast, in most of today's dungeon games, you get into complex formulas, CR levels, XP allotments, or rankings. Pick some pilots, set an overall tonnage limit, and start picking mechs.

And suppose I use a simple 2d6 system like Cepheus Deluxe as my RPG. In that case, I can have a whole wargame-plus-RPG experience with minimal rule memorization and page count and simple core skill mechanics compatible across both games. I don't need a mech system for Cepheus since I am here to play Battletech. Nor do I need characters that take up pages of record sheets; since Cepheus is a Traveller-like system, I can do a 3x5 index card for each pilot and generate a character in less than 5 to 10 minutes. If I want to get out of a mech, make some survival skills rolls, and fight an alien monster on foot, the system is there and works (and stays out of the way).

These two games are the peanut butter and chocolate of my collection. Simple. Taste good together. And always fun.

Wargame RPGs

The Battletech: Time of War (BT: ToW) tabletop RPG was made back in 2010, and it has this very difficult to sort through character creation system where you have a total of 5,000 XP "to spend" and every ability and skill levels up with an individual XP total and skill level. Also, skills are rated on a different XP chart than attributes, and skills have three charts based on the "fast," normal," or "slow learner" traits, and from the book:

...so a character with 525 XPs assigned to his STR Attribute is considered to have a STR score of 5 in game play, with 25 XPs left over (or stored toward later advancement to STR 6). Likewise, a character with 232 XPs in the Small Arms Skill—and who does not possess either the Fast Learner or Slow Learner Traits—is said to have a Skill Level of 6 in Small Arms.

It feels like a massively complicated system with dozens of large and separately tracked numbers on a record sheet, and by the time you get to the equipment chapter and realize every piece of gear is rated on three eras for legality and availability, with an added technology level added into a code for every piece of gear and your brain explodes. And some of the data just feels arbitrary, like spears needing industrial era technology to produce (sorry Neanderthal peoples), and in the Clan Era their legality goes to "controlled" meaning there are spear registration laws or something.

And there are differing legality levels for different types of handguns and small arms. In a 700-year war where 30-meter tall mechs are crushing people under their feet. Maybe if this was a Shadowrun or Cyberpunk game, yes, I could say the legality and availability of gear and weapons (with 95% of it worthless against a mech), and the legality of esoteric weapons like nunchakus is really way too much detail for the RPG companion game to a wargame.

Honestly, if I wanted a point-buy system for skills and abilities GURPS is the king. BT: ToW has the advantage of having the XP levels "unlocked" once play starts, and if you get 10 XP in pistol skill, hey, add that and check a chart to see if your skill increases. You don't have to worry about how much that next level costs and if you have points to buy the next one like you do in GURPS. Honestly, this entire system reminds me of the old Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes system where you had a "skill leveling" mechanic as well.

I can see how the system appeals to those wanting the official Battletech experience and a "level as you go" record of character progression. Every character feels like a mech, with little subsystems, xp levels, and calculations. But there are times when I do not want to read and learn a heavy system just to have more detail to my characters.

Why Not Something Simple?

We played Car Wars in the pre-GURPS days and we wanted a simple RPG to track characters. We saw a similar 2d6 system in Traveller, and that became "The Car Wars" RPG for us. Frankly, the basic Traveller RPG system could be used for any type of 2d6 style game, and as the "wargame RPG" for just about anything. But these days we do have something way better for simple, OGL 2d6 roleplaying:

And yes, that is the incredible Cepheus Deluxe engine that is now powering everything from fantasy, modern, and sci-fi games with simple and blazing-fast character creation and combat system. The skill levels range from +0 to +5, and that about matches Battletech's skill levels, so the characters work right on the board. Since Battletech lowers the target number by skill level (piloting starts at 5 and gunnery at 4) and puts a hard limit at a target number of zero, I would stick to those limits and say the extra skill levels do not apply.

Use Cepheus Engine for person-to-person interactions, and the Battletech engine for mech combats, and you are 99% there for a simple RPG system to use with the wargame. And in character generation, simply replace "grav vehicles" with "mech pilot" and you have a character creation system all set to go.

The weapons are also remarkably similar to Battletech's selection of guns, and frankly, none of them work all that well against mechs except for the ones noted in the infantry equipment of the main Battletech game being: ballistic rifles, energy rifles, machine guns, SRMs, LRMs, and flamers - your heavy support weapons can be considered as the 20th Century models: rocket launchers are SRMs, guided missiles are LRMs, and so on.

I could use this as a drop-in system for Battletech and I would not notice the difference, and I would gain blazing fast character creation and personal combat rules. There are 12 pages of charts in the back of the Battletech RPG, and one simple table of target numbers in Cepheus - along with an advantage/disadvantage roll system familiar to 5E players. Skill level bloat is even controlled in Cepheus by limiting skill ups to one level per year of adventuring, so while your character could improve during play, you will need a longer career to reach the higher skill levels. There is a trait system that utilizes the advantage/disadvantage system very cleverly.

And the social standing score works extremely well in Battletech if you consider the nobility and heredity aspects of the universe that play so strongly in the lore. Even in the Clans social standing works as a measure of warrior status, and it leads to interesting situations like a warrior of high status who really lacks the skills to have earned it - thus creating a bit of tension and intrigue.

And the system lets you decide on matters of availability and legality. Got a core world unaffected by war? Assume Earth-like gun laws are still in place. On the front line world with active invasions going on? Yeah, citizens will be walking around with assault rifles and SRMs like this was Ukraine. In a high-tech industrial world with good manufacturing? Yes, energy weapons can be purchased. In a back world with only machine shops? They could fabricate bolt-action rifles and knives. It is up to the referee, as it should be.

Cepheus Engine: The USB Stick RPG

And the Cepheus Engine still works as the "USB stick" roleplaying game for any wargame, from Car Wars, to World War II or III (with the incredible Modern War game), Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Federation & Empire, and any other system where you do not want to change the wargame system you love, but you want a little more detail to the characters with a simple and clean system. You can adapt movies to this system and have a quick and dirty movie RPG in a half-hour.

The system is there to use and does not take a huge amount of record-keeping or mental space. You could put a character on the front of a small 3x5 card, and still have room for skills, gear, and notes.

The character creation rules and skill lists are completely hackable. If I wanted special tables for different character types all it would take is a skill list revision for my setting and one page of charts for a character type with a few skill tables and that is it. For some games, like Car Wars or Mechwarrior, the character types and creation systems they give you work very well, and all you need to do is substitute a few skills instead of the starship ones.

For Car Wars or Battletech, or even a game like Star Fleet Battles or Federation & Empire, a simple 2d6 system that meshes well with the main rules is all I need or want. Don't give me a giant alternate set of tabletop rules to understand and play, the wargame is still the star of the show and I don't want anything that plays differently. I want a fast and clean system that gives me that extra optional level of detail for characters, handles personal combat, and does task and skill resolution in a clean way.

The system is being used for an amazing number of interesting games, from historical to sci-fi. We have Cepheus Engine, Modern War, 1520 HRE, Sword of Cepheus, Hostile, Zaibatsu, and a ton of other interesting games that all use the same system and can plug into almost any concept or game to flavor the experience.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?filters=45550_0_0_0_0

And it works with the six-sided dice found in almost any wargame.

Battletech: Beginners Box

I would love to see a HeroForge online 3d printing service for battle mechs. One where you can pick a mech, customize it with loadouts, pick weapons options, decorate the base, pose it, paint it, and order the final figure either painted or unpainted (or the 3d printing file).

And Catalyst has made a lot of smart choices with Battletech; I do love this game. I like they cater to both eras of players, the Succession and Clan eras, though I wish the figure support for Succession was more robust (and that is where the HeroForge on-demand 3d printing site would step in to keep figures always in supply). I would also like more cardboard pawns for mechs and auxiliary units and structures, just to fill out battles where a figure is unavailable, but the action still needs a stand-in.

The beginner box simplifies the rules (and gives you a unique figure), so it is worth learning the rules and getting the gameplay model in your head. Certain things like heat and internal damage are not present here, so this is a more accessible game to learn than the complete set. On the plus side, you get two plastic miniatures, paper pawns, counters, and maps that all work fine with the whole game, so the components can be reused with the complete rules.

I find it funny that people say you have to play D&D 5 these days; there is plenty to do and fun communities to join. Maybe on the few big virtual tabletop sites, there are a lot of D&D 5 games, but there are so many other things to play that are interesting and cool. I like to branch out and explore since D&D 5 is approaching Atari 2600 levels of popularity, and I feel we are heading for a significant drop in interest and players "here to be with the crowd" when the bubble bursts.

Nothing this famous ever stays this popular forever; just ask World of Warcraft, Stranger Things, Rick & Morty, Pokemon cards, or any other cultural phenomena that got insanely popular, and then mainstream interest evaporated. This is not to say it will disappear; I am just being realistic and feel we will have a decline of interest among those here for the cultural fad. The hardcore and those who genuinely love and cherish the game (myself included, though I don't play) will always be around.

So I like branching out and creating interest in other games, which is good for everyone and the tabletop community. Battletech is one of those great and long-running communities that is a perfect place to start, or in my case, come back to and experience again.

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.