Through the Fire and Flames

I've seen Battletech in comic book ads when I was a kid. I learned more about it when I was in college and a buddy of mine, Alvin Pineda, showed me a collection of rulebooks and sourcebooks for Battletech. Being a traditional D&D DM/player at the time, those books looked very technical and tedious to play. After almost a decade of being face-first in miniature wargaming, looking back at these books and rules, this time via another buddy, Ryan Tamayo, getting into Battletech seemed like a sweet alternative to my other miniature wargames.

So with Battletech general information printouts in hand, I went over to Ryan's place (which is a convenient walking distance away from my current place of employment) one evening and opted for an introductory game. Ryan knows I've been gaming a lot of 40K and WARMACHINE, so he skipped most of the basics. A few days back, he showed me his collection of Battletech miniatures, and I told him I would want to play with an Atlas. And so last night, he arrayed his miniatures for me to choose from (the boxed set Atlas was already an auto-include for me).

After the first round of movement

Since it's the standard 200 tonnage and 4-mech maximum, I'd be choosing at most two models to fight with my Atlas (which was Type AS7-C) . I looked at the record sheets he had printed out and chose haphazardly. I chose a Dragon and a Panther (Type PNT-9R) initially. Ryan then showed me his newly painted Catapult (Type CPLT-C4), which looked like a Madcat (another old favorite). I learned that the Madcat was indeed based on the Catapult and another Mech, so I chose it over the Dragon since they were the same pointage.

Ryan's force consisted of an Awesome, a Trebuchet and an Axeman.

The actual game is made up of several phases, each of which is played out in a me-go-you-go fashion. You also roll 2D6 for initiative at the start of every round, which is perfectly acceptable for me. Line of sight was very forgiving, as facing is clearly defined by the models' bases and you can swivel the mech's upper torso, too, for better targeting. I didn't get to see any melee action, but that's alright. There's always next time anyway.

Ryan figuring what actions his Awesome will undertake

Targets and weapons usage were declared (for heat management), and were resolved simultaneously. Some mechs' weaponry have ammunition like LRM's which you have to mark down the record sheets. And of course there's heat, caused by whatever actions you assign your mechs to do. I played pretty conservatively the whole game, staying away from gaining too much heat.

I got to roll the first ever Critical Hit for BTPH! I got to break Ryan's Trebuchet's foot actuator with combined shooting from my Atlas and my Panther. They both got some more critical hits in, all on the same Trebuchet, but I forgot where the hits went.

"That's a dead Trebuchet right there!"

In the end, I got to down his Trebuchet. It was a demo game so I'm sure Ryan just left it there to be shot down to bits.

My Atlas had its left and center torso scratched, along with some parts of its right arm.

My Catapult's left leg got shot to bits. We decided to go for a critical effect for its leg, just so we can see how it should affect the game. It got its foot actuator damaged, so it had its movement reduced on our last two rounds.

The Trebuchet on top of the hill, as seen by an Atlas

My Panther suffered heavy damage. It was the target of both Ryan's Awesome and Axeman for the majority of the game. My Panther had its left arm completely obliterated (good thing the PPC wasn't there). The whole left leg armor was also gone, plus heavy damage on its left and right torso armor.

All in all, the game left a very good impression on me. I'm definitely getting that starter box now (so I can demo it later on, too, to others). I'm going to have to change my faction preference though. I'm supposed to be Wolf's Dragoons, but seeing our starting lineup didn't have all the major houses covered, I decided to go for one of them instead. I'm now going to play House Steiner of the Lyran Commonwealth (change reflect on our roster here).

Photos by Ian Navarro