Battletech: Tamar Rising.

Battletech Field Manual/Sourcebook

by Catalyst Game Labs

Silence falls across the Jade Falcon border, and slowly, reports reach Lyran space: the Clan’s warriors, so long a threat to the Steiner realm, are gone. Powerful ambitions rush to fill the vacuum that follows.

Former Clan citizens both recently assimilated and long conquered grapple with a future no longer defined by the will of the Falcons. An Arcturan general dissatisfied with Tharkad’s ineffective rule forges her own destiny. A Clan denied the glory of Terra redefines itself through battle and conquest. And a mercenary unleashes her reborn command to claim vengeance for past calamities.

Tamar Rising is a BattleTech sourcebook providing full details of the events in the former Clan Jade Falcon Occupation Zone from 3151 to mid-3152. Included are a full historical summary of events in that region of space, personality and unit profiles of key players—many appearing here for the first time, and game information to bring it all to your BattleTech tabletop.

Genres: Science Fiction

138 pages, ebook

Published September 1, 2021

Reviews

[Lorcan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I finished the novel Hour of the Wolf, my foremost thought was that while the novel itself was quite perfunctory, the new era it ushered in was going to be very interesting. Tamar Rising, the first sourcebook set after the fall of Terra and the rise of the ilClan definitely doesn't disappoint on that front.

Following almost the entire Wolf and Jade Falcon militaries decamping to assault Terra, it becomes clear to the powers neighboring the Jade Falcon Occupation Zone that the Falcons are missing. However, the Lyran Commonwealth is unable to capitalise on this due to being stretched to breaking point over the last decade's worth of war and internal rebellions, and the Hell's Horses are initially preoccupied with catching up to the Wolves and Falcons and getting in on the race to become ilClan.

This leads to a massive power vacuum that gets filled by smaller powers, much like the Chaos March before it. Here it's a mix of breakaway Lyran powers - Vedet Brewer is dispatched to retake some worlds, and in the least shocking moment ever decides to form his own state. Additionally a Lyran unit decides to go rogue and reform the Tamar Pact. Finally from this side of the border the Kell Hounds return, carving out a nation centred on their ancestral home of Arc-Royal The Clan remnants in the territory also get in on the game, with the Bandit and Merchant castes both forming states, as does one of the few remaining Warriors. The book then goes into detail of these factions forming, securing power and clashing both with each other and then with the Hell's Horses after Alaric rebuffs them near the end of Hour of the Wolf. And then there's a couple of quite effective cliffhangers that we're probably not going to get answers to for a year or two, because the next few sourcebooks are going to be covering the same timeframe as this one for the other hot spots in the Inner Sphere...

This book is basically designed to give the players space to carve out their own adventures in a chaotic region of the Inner Sphere, and to give small units the opportunity to make a difference. I feel it succeeds at its goals thanks to a compelling and genuinely exciting setting, but one that's kinda empty of major military assets. If your average BattleTech Player group runs a campaign centred around a company or so of 'Mechs, they're gonna get lost in the shuffle of the massive campaigns detailed in the Clan Invasion, Civil War and Jihad-era books. But the minor powers here are stretching militaries a regiment or two in strength over a half-dozen worlds, meaning that a mere 12 'Mechs can literally make the difference to who controls a world.

To match this open-ended setting, the game aids move away from giving you Chaos Campaign Touchpoints to add to an ongoing campaign, and towards more of a framework to build your own narrative that can be plugged into Chaos Campaign, or a more traditional campaign or just run on the fly. To this end a gazeteer gives details of 8 major worlds, and there's a double-sided poster of the region included with the book - one side gives jump routes and drive recharge times for every system, while the other side has little call-out boxes for a couple dozen major and minor worlds. It's a wonderful way to get the player to engage with the material and tell their own story inside the grander one on display.

It's also worth calling out the art, layout and design. This is another full-colour book and Catalyst's design team has shaken up the look and feel of the standard BattleTech sourcebook with nice two-page art and text spreads introducing sections, putting a stellar background on the planetary atlas pages, and generally making the book very nice to look at. The vast majority of art is new to the book with a handful of reuses, which is always pleasant to see.

If you're a BattleTech player, this is a fantastic resource that will hopefully spark your imagination and get some interesting games going. If you're a fan of the universe but don't play the game, this is still an engaging read just to find out what's going on in the region. And if you're neither, wh are you even reading this review?

[Kai Shiden · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Falcons are cool again and you even have two falcon factions to choose from, yay.
There are no maps (except for a star map at the end) or mech designs, boo.
Smaller mercenary forces are relevant again as the Falcon occupation zone fragments in a multitude of tiny fiefdoms, sort of resembling the periphery. House Steiner is about as inept as always, and starts shedding planets as the locals find someone else to provide them security. Some old mercenary companies are back, much to the chagrin of some. I don't mind seeing a resurgent grey death legion after their unceremonial demise. However, I was more excited to see the red hunter return. Snord's irregulars are back too, as a footnote pretty much. The return of the Kell Hounds takes up much of the book.
There are some chaos campaign rules at the end for anyone interested in running an ilclan campaign in this region.

[Bridger Cummings · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am quite excited about the upcoming ACES system. I saw that it was set during the events listed in this book, so I figured I'd cave and get it.
This was the first sourcebook I bought for BT. It was okay. I like the map, and some of the basic stuff in there might be fun to incorporate into a larger conquest campaign. I don't intend on playing with the RATs or specific formations listed in the back of the book.
But honestly, most of the lore stuff isn't that interesting to me. I like to have a general grasp on who each faction is and what they're up to, but I don't care about specific leaders, sub-leaders, warriors, etc.
I don't want to disparage the writers, but I think I won't be buying too many more sourcebooks.
I have been enjoying the Hot Spots Hinterlands book, though.

[Philip Kahn-Pauli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best BT supplement since the heady youthful days I bought my first Technical Readout. This is a sandbox toolkit for BT's new era.

[John Somers · Rating 4 out of 5]

14/20.