I’m one of those guys who has been playing Battletech since 1985. My latest purchase,
Battletech: Battlemech Manual, shows that Catalyst is a good steward of the property. As well as weekly gaming with my gaming group, I run Battletech at a couple of local cons and one of them bought a Boxed Starter Set for me to use a couple of years ago. I found it to be a surprisingly nice product. The introductory rules were very nice, and the maps (the con bought extras), and miniatures were great. I had only two issues with it…
1. It was a bit expensive for my taste. Granted, I probably spent the equivalent when I bought my starter kit in 1985 or 86, but $50 (when you can actually find it in stock) is kind of high just to get the most basic version of a game. I will grant that teh quality is excellent, and that it is worth the price, but I wonder if it is what is needed for the
introduction to Battletech.
2. You can’t find it anywhere. As I understand it, we may be between publishing cycles. That’s understandable and all, but the reason I run the game at cons is to get more new players hooked on the game. I might hook them, but then they can’t get ahold of the starter kit either.
This got me thinking…
The Introductory Rules are excellent for getting people into the game. Why not sell them cheap as a stand-alone PDF (better yet, give the thing away - first one's free, right)? Once people experience the mayhem-filled coolness that is basic Battletech, they’ll want more (like
Battletech: Battlemech Manual, Total Warfare, and so forth).
CGL already has a nice FREE pdf of record sheets and counters for the boxed set
http://bg.battletech.com/download/CAT3500A_BoxSet_RecordSheets_with_Counters.pdf?x64300 So, KUDOS! Now all they need are a couple of basic maps re-formatted to print on four 8.5 x 11 sheets.
Put it all (Rules, record sheets, counters, and maps) together in a PDF, and CGL has an easy (and CHEAP) way for people to get hooked on Battletech that will not suffer from unavailability (unless you forget to buy printer ink again...).
The idea is to create something Catalyst can do at a low cost, and that allows more customers to get hooked on the game, insuring a fairly steady revenue stream for the next three decades of Battletech.
The nice boxed set like the Con bought could be marketed as a *special edition* starter pack, allowing CGL to charge a bit more for it. Especially if you put the
Battlemech Manual in the box as the core rules set.