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Battletech Boxed Game
Battletech a Game of Armored Combat Rule Book
A Dark Age has befallen mankind. Where the United Star League once reigned, five successor states now battle for control. The destruction of war has ravaged the once-flourishing worlds and left them in ruins. The advancement of technology has not only ceased, but the machines and equipment of the past cannot be produced by present-day worlds. The Succession Wars are fought over water, ancient machines, and spare-parts factories. Control of these elements will lead to final victory and the domination of known * 48 cardboard stand-up mechs, with full-color front & back views.* 120 color unit insignias* 24 plastic holders for playing pieces* 40-page rulebook, including 10 pages of history, background, and technical information
- GenresGamingScience Fiction
Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
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October 16, 2020
Even though this is the 2nd edition of BattleTech this is actually the first version of the game published under this name. The game was originally published under the name Battledroids in 1984, but there was a conflict with George Lucas who had a trademark on the term "droid". In my opinion this is a rather serendipitous situation because to me a droid implies a machine that operates under it's own power. In BattleTech the giant war machines are controlled by human pilots called MechWarriors. So, for me, the name change is really a good one, besides I think BattleTech just sounds cooler.
BattleTech is a science fiction wargame of sorts set in the future of the 31st century where the players control anywhere from one BattleMech to several on the board. The game is a hex based game and this allows more freedom of movement choices and firing arcs compared to a simple square playing arrangement such as chess. In this game you face off against an opponent and the objective is to destroy the other players Mechs on the board. There are various ways to approach this game and as BattleTech would gain more traction they would really flesh out the world even more.
The concept of people piloting giant robots is nothing new and creator Jordan Weisman makes no secret to say he was influenced by these amazing images that came out of Japan. Gundam has been a thing since the late 70's and I think a lot of the Japanese approaches to their stories was somewhat overly fantastical. However, Gundam always had a serious dose of political intrigue in its background and I feel like Weisman was influenced by that combination when developing the BattleTech universe. One of the major differences with some of the giant robot genre in Japan is I feel like Weisman tried to create a universe that was built on more hard science. I'm not saying this is absent from the Japanese vision at all, but the limitations Weisman set on his universe feels like he tried to ground it in reality fairly hard, while trying to imagine what the future of humanity might look like. While the core game is about robots fighting it out on a battlefield the rule book contained in this Box Set outlines a rough idea of a far more vast universe in which your pilots reside or why they are fighting.
I don't know if the original Battledroids rulebook included as much background, but reading pictures of the back of the box the notion of the Successor States was certainly there. In the margins of the rulebook of the 2nd Edition you get a lot of quick background into the BattleTech universe and its major players. Luckily within the the same year that the second edition was launched FASA also launched some scenario books to bring the fight deeper into this freshly imagined world.
One of the interesting aspects of the BattleTech universe is that it is taking place during a time when humanity has lost a fair amount of technical knowledge from previous centuries. This creates further hardships and interesting problems that could be faced for players. But a lot of those aspects wouldn't get fleshed out until later and sadly at the time of this Box Set's release the novels were still a year or two away from being published.
This box set is sort of a "beginner" type of setup. It has two identical maps to play with, which you can arrange in various ways. The playing pieces are just simple cardboard pieces that you stick in a plastic stand to move around the board. The rules are not overly complex and they give you a few options on how to play the game, each version increasing in complexity to make the game as real as possible. It's up the player to decide what rules to use. The more simplistic the rules the faster a game will go. A highly complex game played with even just two full lances (8 Mechs in all) can take hours to play.
Some of the criticisms I can make is that the rulebook is rife with typos. It does not seem the editing team did a great job and I don't know how much was added or taken away from the original rules set, since this shares the same ISBN with Battledroids I imagine not a lot has changed between editions. This rulebook also has the strangest description of dice I have ever read in my life, even for 1985, people know what dice are...
"The game includes two standard, 6-sided dice, one red and one white. In the game, sometimes only one die will be rolled, and sometimes both will be, either one at a time or both together."
This is by far one of the most roundabout ways to say "sometimes you roll one die and sometimes you roll two." I just found it quite comical when I read it. The most annoying part of the game is that the rulebook takes the time to show you a picture of each different Mech model given in the game, but it doesn't seem the artists were collaborating at all, because the playing pieces don't match the art in the book. Sometimes it is difficult to tell exactly which playing piece is what Mech. It's so bad that some of the gun arrangements don't even match, which just makes the problem much harder.
In the end though, I think BattleTech is a really fun game. I've played it quite a few times and have started collecting the old editions to see what it was like to play since the beginning. It has been a rather fun journey going back in time like this, since I started getting into the game around the time the 4th Edition was released. At this point the game is just a total classic for players.
BattleTech is a science fiction wargame of sorts set in the future of the 31st century where the players control anywhere from one BattleMech to several on the board. The game is a hex based game and this allows more freedom of movement choices and firing arcs compared to a simple square playing arrangement such as chess. In this game you face off against an opponent and the objective is to destroy the other players Mechs on the board. There are various ways to approach this game and as BattleTech would gain more traction they would really flesh out the world even more.
The concept of people piloting giant robots is nothing new and creator Jordan Weisman makes no secret to say he was influenced by these amazing images that came out of Japan. Gundam has been a thing since the late 70's and I think a lot of the Japanese approaches to their stories was somewhat overly fantastical. However, Gundam always had a serious dose of political intrigue in its background and I feel like Weisman was influenced by that combination when developing the BattleTech universe. One of the major differences with some of the giant robot genre in Japan is I feel like Weisman tried to create a universe that was built on more hard science. I'm not saying this is absent from the Japanese vision at all, but the limitations Weisman set on his universe feels like he tried to ground it in reality fairly hard, while trying to imagine what the future of humanity might look like. While the core game is about robots fighting it out on a battlefield the rule book contained in this Box Set outlines a rough idea of a far more vast universe in which your pilots reside or why they are fighting.
I don't know if the original Battledroids rulebook included as much background, but reading pictures of the back of the box the notion of the Successor States was certainly there. In the margins of the rulebook of the 2nd Edition you get a lot of quick background into the BattleTech universe and its major players. Luckily within the the same year that the second edition was launched FASA also launched some scenario books to bring the fight deeper into this freshly imagined world.
One of the interesting aspects of the BattleTech universe is that it is taking place during a time when humanity has lost a fair amount of technical knowledge from previous centuries. This creates further hardships and interesting problems that could be faced for players. But a lot of those aspects wouldn't get fleshed out until later and sadly at the time of this Box Set's release the novels were still a year or two away from being published.
This box set is sort of a "beginner" type of setup. It has two identical maps to play with, which you can arrange in various ways. The playing pieces are just simple cardboard pieces that you stick in a plastic stand to move around the board. The rules are not overly complex and they give you a few options on how to play the game, each version increasing in complexity to make the game as real as possible. It's up the player to decide what rules to use. The more simplistic the rules the faster a game will go. A highly complex game played with even just two full lances (8 Mechs in all) can take hours to play.
Some of the criticisms I can make is that the rulebook is rife with typos. It does not seem the editing team did a great job and I don't know how much was added or taken away from the original rules set, since this shares the same ISBN with Battledroids I imagine not a lot has changed between editions. This rulebook also has the strangest description of dice I have ever read in my life, even for 1985, people know what dice are...
"The game includes two standard, 6-sided dice, one red and one white. In the game, sometimes only one die will be rolled, and sometimes both will be, either one at a time or both together."
This is by far one of the most roundabout ways to say "sometimes you roll one die and sometimes you roll two." I just found it quite comical when I read it. The most annoying part of the game is that the rulebook takes the time to show you a picture of each different Mech model given in the game, but it doesn't seem the artists were collaborating at all, because the playing pieces don't match the art in the book. Sometimes it is difficult to tell exactly which playing piece is what Mech. It's so bad that some of the gun arrangements don't even match, which just makes the problem much harder.
In the end though, I think BattleTech is a really fun game. I've played it quite a few times and have started collecting the old editions to see what it was like to play since the beginning. It has been a rather fun journey going back in time like this, since I started getting into the game around the time the 4th Edition was released. At this point the game is just a total classic for players.
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