The word “Battletech” for anyone who has been a gamer anytime between the early 80’s and today, in any genre or platform should be a household name conjuring up images of giant robots fighting it out in a grim dark future where it seems there is nothing to do but wage war. While there have been countless games that have been released over the years for this franchise, oddly enough the one that started it all, the Battletech Board game is the least likely one that most gamers have been exposed to.

Recently however Catalyst Game Labs has released their latest iteration of the boardgame version of Battletech with the release of a starter box and the official core set for the game and I thought since I’m a huge fan of giant robots beating the crap out of each other I would draw some attention with my blog to this wonderful game.

In the most simplest terms, Battletech is a quasi miniatures game and in many ways its a white elephant in the gaming world. Where most miniature games and really games in general try to simplify the nitty gritty details of combat, Battletech has a way of zooming into the game to try to give you a sense of the weight of the monstrous machines as well as a kind of a focus on the details of a battle.

Where most games will have basic statistics like “firepower” and “health”, which is used for attack and defense, Battletech zooms in on the giant robots giving you something akin to a character sheet that defines details like your external and internal armor, the locations of your weapons and equipment, even your very cockpit where the driver sits. When battlemechs fight, everything is tracked more like a role-playing game, the heat of your mech, the specific location of armor damage and critical hits, the piloting and driving skills of the mechwarrior (the pilot) and countless other very focused details. It’s also extremely dynamic with many modifiers and adjustments based on position, distance and line of site, giving the game a heavy helping of detailed tactical gameplay on a level not typically seen in miniature games.

This really makes Battletech a very unique game because battles play out closer to what they might look like when playing Dungeons and Dragons, where each individual character is unique and the details of the actions and events of the battle are personalized on a character sheet.

The rules of the game fall somewhere in-between simple and super complex, which is an odd statement in what I can only describe as a novel experience. Basically when you first start playing Battletech you will feel overwhelmed as the rules appear to be so intricate and complex, you wonder how you will ever get it straight in your head. However after a match or two, while the game remains deep and tactical, you discover that this game has a very deceptive simplicity to it. For all intense and purposes, its a game with a steep learning curve, yet is actually beneath the surface an extremely simple game to play. Its a lot of dice rolling and special circumstances, but laid out in a logical and referable way that results in very thematic and visual battles. It paints a picture in your mind that is definitive and clear and the rules require virtually not judgmental calls which is rare for miniature games.

Now Battletech has always had and continues to have quite a few issues, problems less related to the game and more related to the management of the franchise which may very well be why many gamers myself included, despite a interest from a distance haven’t taken the plunge. It’s sad really but while the game is fantastic, everything around it that would ordinarily attract modern gamers to it acts like a deterrent.

For one, the miniature line itself relies on third party companies like Iron Wind Metals to provide you with the gaming pieces outside of the starter sets that Catalyst Game Lab provides. Now this shouldn’t be an issue but unfortunately the quality of the sculpts coming from IWM range from atrociously horrible to just really terrible. We know that Battletech originated in the 80’s but since its launch 35 years ago the look of the miniatures produced for the game has not changed, resulting in a game that very much looks like it still belongs in the 80’s.

Now I will say that the new box set is amazing and from a boardgame perspective is more than sufficient to have a lot of fun with the game, but if you’re like me and want to expand your collection you will find little but disappointment. Simply put, the box set is not the standard for the game, its an exception to the rule, most miniatures for Battletech are really shitty and that is not going to motivate players to get into the game any deeper than the box set if at all. For me personally 100% of the reason I picked up Battletech after not playing it for 30+ years is because of this new box set and specifically because of the amazing miniatures within. From here however their really is nowhere to go to expand your collection, Iron Wind Metals is not even close to good enough to spend your hard earned dollar on and to add insult to injury these crappy miniatures are severely overpriced weighing in around 15+ dollars per sculpt. You get the 1980’s fashioned miniatures but a 2050 price tag.

The problems however do not stop with the miniatures, the books themselves, namely the availability of them is also a major snag. As of this writing, just a few months after the box set released, most of the core books for the game are already out of print or out of stock, including the book you actually need to play the full game, The Battletech Manual. This is a major blow for the game that begs to be expanded and expanded it has been with countless I can only imagine great books. Now I will say that the entire product line is very schizophrenic and you will find yourself struggling to even fully understand what each of the hundreds of books printed for the game are, but since virtually none of them are available to buy it won’t make much difference other than being yet another factor to turn you off from the game. If you don’t mind dropping some dough on the PDF’s, at least those are available. I picked up a few and truth is that they are really amazing, which only makes me want the hard-copies even more and makes the whole experience of not being able to get your hands on them that much more frustrating. That said, most of the books in the line are very setting/theme focused and as such, not absolutely vital to gameplay.

The nail in the coffin however has to be the binding contractual arrangement for Battletech, I have confirmed with several sources that Catalyst Game Lab is actually not allowed to make miniatures for Battletech beyond the core sets and their seems to be no prospects for a future in which they will be able to even if they wanted or could afford to. What that means is that the current situation for the franchise is here to stay. I have talked to several long time Battletech fans and they have all confirmed that this is all status quo, it would seem that Catalyst is either unwilling or unable to do anything about the current state of the franchise licensing arrangements. I would venture to guess unable, as they seem to be very dedicated to the product line and I can only imagine that they would love to make it far more than it is. Still, the lack of prospects that anything will change in the future does have a very deflating effect to the whole experience.

Now that was a very long and mostly negative outlook on the game, for those that read my blog, you know I don’t sugar coat. That said, I’m still very excited about the game going forward. My hope is that this box set that was released will be successful enough to fund and make Catalyst Game Labs realize that they are sitting on a potentially very lucrative game that could become a lot more than it is today. In that light, I will offer some advice to Catalyst Game Labs for whatever its worth.

Call it 5 steps to making the game better.

Step 1 “Kick-starter”

Work with Iron Wind Metals to create a kick starter to fun new miniatures for Battletech. Help them make it happen, let them make the money, but do it anyway. Why? Because even if you don’t earn money from the sales of the miniatures, you will earn money from a growing and excited audience. Kick-Starter is the place to make unfunded dreams become reality and if you can’t find a way out of the contract, or can’t find a way to fun the games miniatures then let the community do the work for you.

Step 2 “Clean up The Catalog”

The “Keep it for eternity” approach to product lines is the kiss of death in the gaming industry. Your product should always have a public face as a game that looks like it was released yesterday. Art is everything, presentation is everything.

Any book that wasn’t printed in the last two years should be removed from the catalog into some archive section or irrelevance. If you want to make it relevant, create a revised version, even if you don’t change a blood word and just update the format and art, every book in the catalog should look like it belongs in the year 2019 and not the year 1985.

“Step 3 “Create Clarity”

The biggest and most important thing for the health of a gaming franchise, in particular a miniature game is to ensure that its crystal clear what everything is and what it is for. The game in its current state it’s not even entirely clear what the books are and while the community is certainly helpful in creating some of that clarity for you, your website should be a focused machine of clarity. A person with zero experience should know what products are available and what they are for inside of 2 minutes of visiting the site.

Today Battletech books are a cluster fuck of confusion, you can spend weeks deciphering what books are for which aspect of the game, their is a total lack of explanation about how eras work and what the difference between a technical readout, historical book, starter book and core book is and even how you identify them. It’s a mess and it should be clear as crystal.

Step 4 “Fix the availability issues”

Visit your business model and make sure that if the game is in print, the game is available. Nothing kills a game faster than players being unable to find the books and material they want for their collection and there is no excuse for not having the basic starter, box set and core manuals available. If it’s unavailable, your losing business and the community is shrinking, it’s that simple. It’s better to have an overstock of box sets and core books on the bargain bin then it is to have them unavailable and out of stock.

Step 5 “Modernize The Mini’s”

Whatever contractual obligation and licensing issues or finance problems are preventing the modernization of the miniature line, fix it. Quite literally without this resolved Battletech has no future other than the one in which they live in obscurity.

Set the highest standard you can afford and raise it each time you make a miniature.