Sarna.net, Fair Use

This is my entry for the "Gaming in the '80s" contest being run by @archdruid (@veryspider and @elfranz). This is the second of my three allowed entries! The first was also another iconic tabletop game called Car Wars.

Okay... this would have to be my MOST beloved gaming franchise of all time (to date...)! BattleTech is "A Game of Armoured Combat". It was a tabletop board game (since lovingly updated for PCs with HareBrained Games "BattleTech") that also saw huge spinoff lines in books, novels and computer games. It is a at it's heart, a game of huge stompy Mechs (BattleMechs) stomping across a hex based battlefield and just slamming each other with guns, lasers and melee weapons until one side (or both...) is slag...

Needless to say, it was a game where you would be perusing books and tactics... whilst making stompy stompy sounds... which in your mind would sound a lot like this:

... but in hindsight... probably sounded pretty lame and a lot less impressive... pew PEW pew!... but come on... an imagination would just run wild at the thought of gigantic metal machines facing off against each other!

... I guess the game probably looked and sounded much more like this from the outside...

... but in the mind... it was just so much better!

Setting and Lore

Boardgames Geek, Fair Use

BattleTech is set in the far off future... between 3025-3050 and onwards (depending on which version of the expansions you are playing) after the fall of the Star League. The Star League was a golden era of mankind's social and technological development.. allowing the expansion of humanity into the stars and leading to leaps in technological and scientific fields, of which Faster than Light travel/communication and the development of BattleMechs were some of the tangible results. However, humans being humans... it all got screwed up, with the Star League disintegrating into Civil War after a Succession dispute... with the majority of the loyal Star League Defence Forces packing up and leaving the known galaxy under the inspired leadership of Kerensky rather than turning their guns inward.

As soon as the bastion of order left with the SLDF the remaining power centres were no longer restricted, which led to centuries of a Dark Age... where the galaxy wide civil war started destroy the essential infrastructure that kept mankind bound across the stars. First the loss of communications networks and the loss of FTL starships... and then later the manufacturing capability to reconstruct infrastructure.... then finally the actually technological knowledge required to rebuild the manufacturing. As the Civil War dragged on and more and more infrastructure was lost... the remaining powers decided to sign a treaty known as the Treaty of Ares.... basically restricting combat away from remaining manufacturing and technological centres. The galaxy could no longer afford to lose more knowledge.

The known galaxy is divided into feudal states (5 larger Sucessor States and a multitude of independent or rogue states)... This was known as the Inner Sphere... and beyond this volume of space was the lost colonies or pirate worlds. The political structure of the states resembled the medieval feudal structures of the recent past... BattleMechs were prized possessions (the ability to construct the have been lost, and so surviving mechs were constantly patched and lovingly preserved) handed down through families... The power of these battle machines gave families political power, and they pledged allegiance to a particular State in return for authority over a world. LosTech (old Star League technology, both artifacts and knowledge) is a much sought commodity, and CommStar (based on Terra, and in control of the FTL communications networks) is a semi-religious order that plays the materially powerful states against each other.

The 3050s saw the return of the Star League Defence Forces (SLDF) in the guise of the Clans. In the centuries since their exodus, they had reformed into a caste-based society... with the warrior caste being the highest caste. They had also retained and refined their technological prowess and combined it with a zeal to return to Terra and to reform the Star League. Their political order was divided between the Wardens and the Crusaders, with the Wardens wanting to guide the galaxy peacefully back to the Star League and the Crusaders wanting to rebuild by force. To begin with, their forces were unstoppable... their sheer might through dedicated training and eugenics and superiority of technology were impossible for the divided Inner Sphere to match. However, their downside was that they had adopted a ritualised form of warfare... in which the attacker and defender stated terms of victory and each sides bid within themselves (with who would complete the objectives with least forces required) for the honour of fighting the battle. It was a ritual born of the scarce resources during their Exodus, but it was a ritual that was finally exploited by CommStar to call a halt to the Clan invasion. CommStar staked Earth as the prize and defeated the Clan forces by cunning.

This has led to an uneasy truce between the Clans and the Inner Sphere... the Inner Sphere have turned back upon each other... whilst the Clans have split into their Warden and Crusader camps... meanwhile, CommStar has given up it's mantle of a disinterested third party, and has militarised itself. From here, it is hard to tell what the outcome will be for the galaxy...

The Core

The amount of lore and detail in the history of the rule books was absolutely stunning... stats, lore, diagrams and pictures... this was a nerd's delight! The history was just so rich... and every expansion would just add so much to the universe. In the beginning there was just the tactical battle of two sides going at each other with a handful of mechs on a hex based map... however, this quickly expanded to include squishies (human soldiers), tanks... VTOLs and planes... spacecraft and jumpships... LosTech and ClanTech... each rulebook was a sheer delight to open up and just devour!

Spin Offs

The BattleTech universe gave birth to such a wide array of fan fiction and novels (and even a TV cartoon series!) that were written into the canon of the universe. I would devour these books... actually, now that I think about it... I should go and get those e-books, now that I'm older and have more money to spend on these little things!

The story and universe was one that was ripe for conversion to computer gaming, and in the 90s, Activision (before they got absorbe into Activision/Blizzard) published a widely acclaimed take on the BattleTech universe for PC, MechWarrior. It put the player in the cockpit of a stompy Mech and placed them in the middle of an ongoing dispute between the Successor States. It was a huge technological achievement for the time, but second attempt (Mechwarrior 2, around 1:00 in the video above) was what really put it in the gaming Hall of Legends.. There were a number of iterations in the franchise... and after a very very long wait... we have the announcement of MechWarrior 5:

... let's just say I'm totally hyped!

... another computer gaming spinoff was one that took in the scavenging and survival metagame that existed alongside the actual tactical battle part of the game. Scrounging supplies and salvaging battle loot was always an integral part of the BattleTech experience. Winning wasn't important... surviving to fight again was always the most important goal of a Mech Commander. Remember, these machines were scarce resources which were directly linked to a dynasty's (or mercenary outfit's) political power.

MechCommander was a game that made the player a tactical commander of a company of Mechs... navigating the political hazards of the Inner Sphere whilst just trying to make ends meet on the metagame level... oh yes, and to survive on the combat field as well! It saw two iterations, MechCommander 1 and 2... and has recently seen a remake by HareBrained Games, BattleTech... which is so nearly the perfect game (with a large community mod, it comes even closer!).

My Experience

What can I say... I had so many hours of playing this game with my school friends and my brother, I have such incredibly fond memories of this game.. we would have huge campaigns that would last many many gaming sessions. The metagame of mercenary survival was something that also appealed to me (and has really shaped my taste in computer gaming as well)... I would save up for each rulebook and expansion and it was always the top choice if my parents offered to buy me a gift!

... I remember when the Clan expansion came out... it was such a profound shock to the uneasy balance of limited war that had plagued the Inner Sphere. However, I jumped ship immediately... I was Clansman! Many of my friends stayed loyal to the Inner Sphere, and our battles took on a whole new dimension... as we considered each other traitors. They thought I had abandoned the Inner Sphere, whilst I believed that their Successor States were a dishonourable betrayal of the Star League history,

Just writing this overview of the BattleTech universe has brought such a child-like joy to my face... watching the videos of the past games and the current and future ones as well has me so full of excitement! I remember when HareBrained Games brought out their take on BattleTech... I almost loved everything about it... thankfully, I've since modded it to make it more of what I would have ideally loved it to be. I'm hoping that they will iterate the formula... as the base tactical model is really quite good, but the metagame was weak.

I can't believe that over the course of writing this.. I've emailed my mother to see if the old books are still around, and if she wouldn't mind putting them aside for the next time I visit later in the year! I just want to relive the joy of turning those pages and seeing all the lovely stats and pictures again!

Steem-Monsters (aka the best blockchain game out there!

Humble Bundle

Have you heard of Humble Bundle? It's a place to get some really great deals on Games, e-books and comic bundles. However, if you sign up for a Humble Bundle Subscription (12 USD per month) you get some really nice bonuses!

1. A 100+ USD bundle of games delivered direct to you each month, redeemable on Steam, Uplay or direct download (depending on the game). This includes recent Triple A games!
2. Access to the Humble Bundle "Trove", a list of 60 games (and growing...) which are free to play as long as you remain a subscriber!
3. Additional Discounts on the Humble Bundle store, with the choice of supporting charities, Humble Bundle or developers in whatever percentage that you wish!

Humble Bundle Subscriptions, it's a no brainer for the dedicated gamer!

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