At this point I have talked about several books and assuming your following the guide, you are roughly caught up to where I am myself. Now I’m by no stretch of the imagination an expert in all things Battletech, in fact, for all intents and purpose I’m a complete wet behind the ears noob. That said, I firmly believe the best guides come from novices, as experts and long time vets can very easily overlook the fact that as new players, we really don’t know jack shit and you can make no assumptions of any kind about what we may or may not have come across or experienced in the game.

With that in mind the question for this guide is where does one go next. At this point we have experienced the core set, we have familiarized ourselves with the rules and the universe, we have experienced some parts of the campaign rules, tech bits about mech creation and are delving deeper into the nitty gritty of the game. If you think I was confused when I started, from this point things really become very fuzzy as the fork in the road has many paths to choose from.

From what I have gathered however there is a core question when approaching the game of Battletech that you have to answer which can and will close many of these paths.

The question is, do you want to get into the combined forces gameplay or do you plan to stick with Battemech vs. Battlemech games exclusively.

To answer that question you have to understand what it means. There is a book you have probably already considered getting called Battletech: Total Warefare. This book includes many of the rules you have already available to you in the Battletech Manual, however it also includes the rules for many other types of units in the Battletech universe including things you may already have seen mentioned in other books like tanks, infantry units, battlesuits, pretty much everything from flying saucers to a guy on the ground with a rifle. These units can be incorporated into your matches/scenarios & campaigns to create a more full fledged science-fiction warfare experience and a great deal of the source books available for the game make the assumption that this is something you have done.

If however you choose to go the purely mech vs. mech route and desire to skip all the existential stuff, it does take a few of the source books off the table as again, quite a few source books in Battletech work under the assumption that you are using the Battletech: Total Warefare rules.

I will from this point in the guide talk about some of the books available in general and note any books that do or don’t make this assumption.

Exploring Battletech Source Books

I truly believe that setting information enhances the experience of Battletech more than any rulebook and while I think many of the core rulebooks which expand the game are great, there is kind of a point of saturation which can cause you to lose focus about why we all love Battletech to begin with. Giant robots fighting it out in a exhaustively detailed science-fiction setting. It’s not just about rules and in fact, because the game is extremely long even when using the most basic rules, adding more complex rules that require more reference can really bog down the experience. Setting books however are just that, fluff and Battletech has some really good stuff.

My favorite books so far, the ones that I love to read and put a grin on my face and inspire me to play the game are the Historicals, in particular some of the origin stories about the Battletech universe. My favorite reads so far are the Historical Liberation of Terra I & II books. While applicable in game terms as a book to be used for the creation of campaigns, this really is largely a fluff book, one that speaks to the origins of the Battletech universe, those early year wars that set the stage for the universe. Its like watching episode I of Star Wars and seeing how it all started. I don’t know if the vets would agree with me, this certainly is a preference thing but if your like me and you love setting source books, these are really great. Definitely lots of information here to run entire campaigns around, though I would argue, you read it just to read it like a good book. The Historical Reunification War is another great example of these types of book (haven’t read it but I’m excited to, it appears to be along the same lines as the Terra books). These books don’t really make any major assumptions in terms of the depth or level of rules you use, in fact, it doesn’t even fully commit to whether you are using Alpha Strike or the Battletech Boardgame.

If you have gone the Battletech: Total Warefare route, one series of books I can recommend is the Turning Point books. These are a kind of campaign book which sets the stage of key moments in the Battletech history and puts you behind the drivers seat of larger forces with very specific campaign scenarios. Very detailed information outlines the story behind the conflicts and each has unique challenges for players, all under the belt of a Campaign Operations style structure but all the math is done for you including unit selection if you would like. You get your army, you get your background information and you get your campaign missions. Its all very self contained reminiscent of the starter books, but on a larger scale including all of the various forces described in the Total Warefare book. What I like about these more than anything is that they are short and to the point and largely self sufficient, making them easy to absorb. I really wish they made more of these types of books for strictly Battlemech battles, but it’s worth pointing out that it would not be too tough to adapt these scenarios to be just that, in fact they sort of intend you to as part of the setup can be to create random forces on each side using a random creation table or build them using one of the point system approaches (tonnage, credits etc.). You could simply omit any units that are not mechs for the turning point campaign, though, its clear that doing so may create some oddities with some scenarios which have been balanced with specific forces in mind. Unless your a cannon nut however this isn’t a big issue.

These books use the Chaos rules Track system, which at this point should be fairly familiar to you. Each series is set in a different era so while you could stick to the Succession Era, with these books you could easily explore other eras of the game. Now like many source books this one includes plenty of references to map sheets you may or more likely may not have. Its an unfortunate part of these books that they don’t include the maps you need to play the scenarios, one really wishes they would. You will have to seek them out on your own or use proxies.

I can’t really recommend (or not recommend) any specific books, though their layouts appear to be the same and Catalyst Games has offered a free one as well as some previews of some the ones you can buy. Its worth noting that these books are dirt cheap for what you get at 5 bucks a pop, probably the most value you for the buck of any of the source books as they save you the obscene amount of time it would take to create your own campaigns. One thing that is not fully self-contained is that you will need record sheets for the units you will use, but these are relatively easy to come by for free with the 3rd party software and internet at your finger tips.

The next books I would not recommend though must be mentioned because arguably I think the Battletech community would recommend it are the Technical Readout books. These books are a resource for fluff detail on all of the units of a particular era, giving both the background information and the point of the book of identifying which units are available to be used in a particular era. It makes sense that you need this information but there are online resources that provide the same thing in searchable database and personally I found that as a fluff/setting resource they where kind of generic. Its interesting enough to read about the history of your favorite mech, but I didn’t really see them as either necessary or particularly useful books as either setting books or rules books. They where kind of meh to me, but I will admit this is all opinion and zero fact, It seems to me at least that in large part the community for Battletech considers them a very necessary books to own for the game.

The Conclusion

I think Battletech is a great game, a nostalgic trip down memory lane of a game that has lived almost unchanged for 35 years. There is a ton of resources available to the game and one could easily get lost in endless source material, in particular the back story of the game that is about as elaborate as any I have seen.

Sadly however despite this being a very fun experience of exploring an old game with fresh eyes there are many issues with Battletech that make it difficult to recommend.

The first and perhaps biggest issue with Battletech is that its origins as a game made in the 80’s with minimal updates really show through in light of modern game design and modern miniatures game. This is a fairly hefty ruleset built around a tactical game that is ultimately very simple and relatively shallow. Its like playing checkers with a 300 page rulebook, a complicated game, but that complication does not result in a deeper tactical experience, just a very complicated resolution of the rules.

There are many great concepts in the game, in particular the zoomed in cockpit experience, location based damage models and a fairly interesting manipulation of dice roll modifiers via positions and actions taken. The weight of the rules to resolve these concepts however are too demanding with far too many sub-rules and exception based rules creating a metric ton of bookkeeping and administration. The really big offender and result of all this is that the game just takes too long to play, in particular in how it compares to the tactical depth of the game. The average play time of even the most basic Lance vs. Lance game (4 mechs vs. 4 mechs) will take in excess of 4+ hours to resolve and this is just the starting point for the game.

To me personally this is explains why the game lives in relative obscurity despite being based on a fairly noteworthy franchise. Gamers and science-fictions generally know about Battletech, this is not some niche setting, this is a well known and beloved universe. It’s unfortunate that the core game on which the whole thing is founded on is rather lackluster at least in comparison to modern games.

So what is a gamer to do, what is the recommendation here? The answer to me is fairly straightforward. Buy the Box Set and try it. Its a relatively cheap game to get into and you can make a pretty good assessment from this core set alone to determine whether or not its a game for you. I personally think, as has been the case for years, that modern games will look at this game and note that while based on a wonderful setting with some great concepts and ideas going into the mechanic, it is unfortunately a game terminally stuck in the 80’s. What this game needs more than anything if it is to compete and really join the miniature table top game world is a serious revision focused on modernizing the rule set, not necessarily to simplify the game, but to streamline it and most importantly greatly expedite gameplay.

There are some great alternatives to Battletech that I can recommend, first and foremost is Warmachine. Many of the great concepts and ideas that have gone into Battletech appear in Warmachine which is a far more modern and tactically rich game that is also about giant robots. Grant it, its a very different setting but I would argue just as rich and interesting as Battletech.

Dust Tactics is another game that features giant robots in a alternative universe tactical war game, also an amazing and very modern design that is far more tactically interesting with half the rules weight of Battletech.

At the end of the day, like any miniatures game, the gamer must choose and you would be doing yourself a disservice if you did not investigate Battletech as a option for your table top, but from one gamer to another, as cool as the concept is and as wonderful as the setting is, Battletech: The Game of Armored combat gets a pass from me. It just doesn’t have the modern nuts and bolts I’m looking for in a game and it’s long play time that offers too little tactical depth results in a game that doesn’t have a good time investment vs. tactical depth ratio.