CORE RULEBOOKS
The current award-winning BattleTech core rulebooks expand upon the rules from the Introductory Box Set, while taking a “kitchen sink” approach, meaning they provide a vast smorgasbord of rules and options from which each player group gets to decide what they’ll use each time they play.
However, even though each rulebook (and by extension, the rules it contains) has been made as easy as possible to plug into existing games, the sheer depth and scope can be intimidating.
The free PDF Primer at right is designed to quickly and easily walk you through everything the BattleTech game system has to offer and how each core rulebook below can be of interest to your gaming group. (Much of this information is found in various sources, but is compiled here for ease of reference.)
BattleMech Manual
Your Avatar Awaits!
- Standing from seven to sixteen meters tall, and weighing from twenty to one hundred tons
- Powered by an armored and shielded fusion reactor
- Skeleton of honeycombed, foamed aluminum core wrapped with stressed silicon carbide monofilament and sheathed by a rigid, titanium-steel shell
- Locomotion generated via bundles of polyacetylene-fiber myomer muscles
- Protected by aligned-crystal steel over a layer of boron nitride impregnated with diamond monofilaments Mounting a swath of powerful weapons from charged particle beams to lasers, missiles to rapid-fire autocannons
- All at the command of the noble elite, the MechWarriors
The modern BattleMech is the end result of more than three thousand years of battlefield technology development. Combining awesome destructive power and unparalleled maneuverability, the BattleMech is perhaps the most complex machine ever produced. The undisputed master of thirty-first century warfare, the BattleMech seems destined to reign supreme for centuries to come.
—Excerpts from a promotional pamphlet originally distributed by Defiance Industries of Hesperus, Lyran Commonwealth, 3007
Using the most up-to-date rules text, the BattleMech Manual has been designed from the ground up to cater to the BattleTech player wanting to engage in an all-’Mech battle. Includes a variety of optional rules, terrain and more. Welcome to the most table-usage-friendly BattleTech rulebook ever published!
eBook Availability
The BattleMech Manual is available in digital form from the following vendors:
Unable to find a hardcopy of the book at your local game store? Order direct:
Alpha Strike
Second Printing
This is an errata-corrected second printing.
eBook Availability
Alpha Strike is available in digital form from the following eBook/PDF vendors:
Unable to find a harcopy of the book at your local game store? Order direct:
Campaign Operations
Forge your forces and prepare to fight any battle across the Inner Sphere! Campaign Operations completes the core rulebook series begun in Total Warfare. While previous rulebooks detailed game play at various levels—from a single MechWarrior, to a BattleMech company, to entire armies—this final core volume focuses on the forces a player will build and run through any level of play.
Campaign Operations contains rules for creating and running forces, whether a down-on-their-luck mercenary battalion or a fully-supplied House regiment. The volume also contains complete rules for devising solar systems, allowing players to recreate existing star systems or craft all-new worlds to challenge each other. The final sections of the book bring several options to the table for campaign play. Building off of previous sections in Total Warfare and Strategic Operations, the Narrative Campaign, Map-Based Campaign and Chaos Campaign rules allow players to build exciting, fun campaigns of almost any stripe for their newly-minted forces!
eBook Availability
Campaign Operations is available in digital form from the following vendors:
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Interstellar Operations
Marshal your forces and prepare to conquer the Inner Sphere! Interstellar Operations is the next long-awaited rules installment to the series begun with Total Warfare and carried through the award-winning Tactical Operations and Strategic Operations. The former focuses on a whole new level of excitement directly on your gaming table while the later focuses on moving from a single scenario to a multi-part campaigns and how to take an entire solar system. Interstellar Operations zooms up to the final level, allowing players to assume the roles of House Lords and dominate the galaxy.
Interstellar Operations contains rules for running an entire faction’s military as a player tries to conquer numerous solar systems, including rules for how to conduct warfare through scales larger than previously represented within the core line of rulebooks. Finally, perhaps one of the most anticipated portions of the book, the Alternate Eras section introduces a huge swath of rules for playing across the thousand years of BattleTech history, including weapons and equipment mostly unique to a given era, such as complete rules for building and playing with LAMs.
eBook Availability
Interstellar Operations is available in digital form from the following eBook/PDF vendors:
Unable to find a hardcopy of the book at your local game store? Order direct:
Alpha Strike Companion
BattleMechs clash, fighters duel, and infantry swarm across the landscape. High above the clouds, mighty WarShips emerge from hyperspace, laden with DropShips filled with reinforcements. A host of new machines, new warriors, and new tactics are unleashed as war rages from the void of space to the earth below. The BattleTech universe is yours to conquer! Alpha Strike Companion adds legions of new rules and expanded options for BattleTech: Alpha Strike, the miniatures war game. With this expansion, players will unlock new tactical abilities, special warrior options, design quirks, and unit types. But more than that, players will find within these pages an expanded abstract aerospace system that will enable them to wage war from planet to jump point, while a handy conversion system opens the path to translating the stats for any BattleTech unit to its fast-playing Alpha Strike equivalent.
eBook Availability
Alpha Strike Companion is available in digital form from the following eBook/PDF vendors:
Unable to find a hardcopy of the book at your local game store? Order direct:
Total Warfare
The product of more than twenty years of gaming experience, Total Warfare presents the rules of the BattleTech game system as never before. For the first time, all the rules for various units that have a direct impact on the deadly battlefields of the thirty-first century appear in a unified rules set: from BattleMechs to ProtoMechs, Combat Vehicles to Support Vehicles, infantry to aerospace fighters and DropShips. Interwoven and meticulously updated, Total Warfare provides the most detailed and comprehensive rules set published to date for BattleTech—the perfect companion for standard tournament play.
Total Warfare is the single-source rulebook for people who play BattleTech. It is not intended to teach new players the game, but rather to serve as a reference work for people who know the game, while introducing more technologies and expansive rules than appear in the basic box set. The introductory game in the BattleTech line is the BattleTech Introductory Box Set. New players should pick up that product before diving into this one. Construction rules for the various units presented in Total Warfare can be found in TechManual.
Fourth Printing
This is a errata-corrected fourth printing.
eBook Availability
Total Warfare is available in digital form from the following eBook/PDF vendors:
Unable to find a hardcopy of the book at your local game store? Order direct:
TechManual
A companion volume to Total Warfare, the TechManual combines all the construction rules for the various units presented in that core rules set. Streamlined and updated, it contains all the core weaponry and equipment from previous rules set, as well as some of the newest, bleeding edge technologies. More than just a rulebook, however, the TechManual presents numerous sourcebook-style treatises, providing the in-universe context for these units and the technologies of their development. A must have resource for any BattleTech afficionado!
eBook Availability
TechManual is available in digital form from the following eBook/PDF vendors:
Unable to find a hardcopy of the book at your local game store? Order direct:
Tactical Operations
Take your warfare to a whole new level of excitement! Deploy under cover of exotic weather and severe planetary conditions. Surprise your enemy with your mastery of new battlefield tactics—from artillery to command-level comms to minefields—as well as cutting-edge, prototype technologies! A daring commander can take advantage of any or all of these…if they're brave enough to seize the moment!
Tactical Operations is the one-source reference for advanced rules that apply to on-world operations. It includes new movement and combat options, an extensive Advanced Weapons and Equipment section, and the rules for playing and constructing advanced Support Vehicles and Mobile Structures.
Second Printing
This is an errata-corrected second printing.
eBook Availability
Tactical Operations is available in digital form from the following eBook/PDF vendors:
Unable to find a hardcopy of the book at your local game store? Order direct:
Strategic Operations
Liftoff planet and conquer an entire solar system! Deploy kilometer-long WarShips as escorts, first for JumpShips bridging the gulf between stars, then for detaching DropShips that burn in system to drop troops onto any battlefield. New aerospace tactics will allow you to gain air supremacy to match your grasp of ground tactics. Yet the war for a star system is more than a single battle and a commander that utilizes his supplies and personnel with skill will survive the numerous battles to come.
Strategic Operations is the one-source rulebook for advanced rules aerospace assets that open the entire conquest of a solar system. It includes new aerospace movement, combat and advanced aerospace unit construction rules, as well as comprehensive maintenance, salvage, repair and customization rules. Finally, a complete game system--BattleForce--allows players to use their existing miniatures and mapsheets to play quick, fast-paced BattleTech games, from companies to battalions and even regiments.
Quick-Start Rules
The Quick-Start Rules for BattleForce is available here.
Second Printing
This is an errata-corrected second printing.
eBook Availability
Strategic Operations is available in digital form from the following eBook/PDF vendors:
Unable to find a hardcopy of the book at your local game store? Order direct:
A Time of War: The BattleTech RPG
Political machinations of feudal lords plunge whole sectors into war; unscrupulous merchant starship captains smuggle weapons to their own faction’s enemies; greedy military commanders demand tribute from worlds they’re protecting; animalistic pirate kings harvest high technologies and human slaves in lightning raids; betrayals from oath-bound allies leave honorable soldiers growing cold on forgotten worlds; death at the tip of knife from a concubine turned assassin to avenge a world and love lost: it is a time of war.
What empire will you swear allegiance to: a warrior merchant of House Steiner; the honorbound samurai of House Kurita; the vat-bred warriors of the Clans; a mercenary that fights only for the highest bidder?
Choose your life in the universe: a MechWarrior piloting the thirty-foot-tall BattleMechs that turn the tide of any battle; a spy deep behind enemy lines discovering critical secrets; a merchant carrying critical supplies; a scientist unleashing the latest cutting edge technologies?
How will YOU become a legend?
Second Printing
This is an errata-corrected second printing.
Quick-Start Rules
The Quick-Start Rules for A Time of War is available here, and includes rules, recordsheets and a brief adventure to get you familiar with the game and its mechanics.
eBook Availability
A Time of War is available in digital form from the following eBook/PDF vendors:
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A Time of War Companion
A Time of War Companion introduces advanced rules for BattleTech role-players and gamemasters alike. This core book expansion showcases advanced gameplay options including Advanced Tier martial arts, “heromode” gameplay, metaskills, Trait Checks, and more! Use character design templates to quickly generate new characters and NPCs, or even convert older characters from previous MechWarrior rule sets! Gamemasters, use the world-building rules to bring your players to exotic new locations, introduce them to equally exotic fauna you have created to greet them there, and give them the chance to fight for—or against—a host of new technologies rarely seen in the field! The tools to enhance your role-playing campaigns are here for the taking!
eBook Availability
A Time of War Companion is available in digital form from the following eBook/PDF vendors:
Unable to find a hardcopy of the book at your local game store? Order direct:
BattleTech is a science-fiction “space opera”: a factional, militarized universe set in the thirty-first century, a future where humanity has spread to the stars and spawned titanic interstellar empires, each nation controlling hundreds of worlds across a region of space stretching a thousand light years and beyond.
Initially published over thirty years ago as a tabletop board game, BattleTech has gone on to become one of the gaming industry’s most important and longest-lasting science-fiction universes.
Be sure to check out the latest BattleTech Releases and the Coming Soon page for the newest BattleTech products.
Recent Posts
4 days ago
Heads up, MechWarriors - the PDF version of "BattleTech: 25 Years of Art and Fiction" is the Deal of the Day at DriveThruFiction! Continue your celebration of #BattleTech35 with this great volume. ...
drivethrufiction.com
BattleTech: 25 Years of Art and Fiction - BattleTech: 25 Years of Art & Fiction is the ultimate chronicle of the BattleTech/MechWarrior universe. With 304 pagBattleTech added 2 new photos.
7 days ago
Continuing the celebration of 35 years of Battletech, we're thrilled to announce that two Print on Demand novels are available now that represent the earliest days of Battletech fiction and done of the latest fiction to come out.
First, going back to the early days of Battletech, we present "Decision at Thunder Rift" by William H. Keith
THE FIRST NOVEL IN THE EPIC SAGA OF FUTURE WAR...
Thirty meters tall, seventy tons of quick-striding death and destruction, the armored war machines called BattleMechs are the front-line forces of the crumbling star empire locked in the horror of the endless Succession Wars. Their pilots are MechWarriors, 31st-Century knights riding armored machines powerful enough to take a city apart.
Grayson Death Carlyle had been training to be a MechWarrior since he was 10 years old, but his graduation came sooner than expected. With his friends and family dead and his father's regiment destroyed, young Grayson finds himself stranded on a world turned hostile. Now he must learn the hardest lesson of all: it takes more than a BattleMech to make a MechWarrior...
But to claim that title, all Grayson has to do is go out and capture one of those giant killing machines...if it doesn't kill him first.
www.amazon.com/BattleTech-Legends-Decision-Thunder-Rift-ebook/dp/B003PPCUF0/ref=sr_1_1?crid=357RC...
Next, at the other end of the spectrum, we have the Omnibus of "The Anvil" by Blaine Lee Pardoe "A Splinter of Hope" by Philip Lee!
VICTORY AT ANY COST…
Jump into your BattleMech cockpit, fire up your fusion engine, and charge into the fray with two all-new BattleTech novellas from Philip A. Lee and BattleTech veteran Blaine Lee Pardoe.
A Splinter of Hope: Violent expansion of the Capellan Confederation and the Draconis Combine has cost recently crowned First Prince Julian Davion both his mentor and countless Federated Suns worlds. To rally his people, he funnels the fires of justice into an ambitious yet risky campaign to retake a vital system: New Syrtis, the occupied capital of the Capellan March. However, the Capellan people have fought dearly for their prize and will do anything in their power to hold onto it. Will Julian’s gamble preserve the future of the Federated Suns, or is the invasion doomed before it even begins?
The Anvil: Khan Malvina Hazen of Clan Jade Falcon is known throughout the Inner Sphere as a merciless, bloodthirsty tyrant. The next target for her scorched-earth, take-no-prisoners tactics is the Lyran Commonwealth world of Coventry: a persistent stain on the Jade Falcons’ history. But not all Falcons follow Malvina’s lead. Ordered to take Coventry at any cost, Galaxy Commander Stephanie Chistu wishes to see her Clan victorious, but no victory is worth the Jade Falcons losing their very soul. To stand up to tyranny and find an honorable path forward for her Clan, she must balance the razor’s edge between duty and honor—or die trying.
www.amazon.com/dp/1941582761/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_2?keywords=BattleTech:+Splinter&qid=1549846084&s=g...
Ebook Omnibus ordering
books2read.com/BattleTechASplinterofHope-The-Anvil ...BattleTech added 2 new photos.
1 week ago
BattleTech anniversary t-shirts and hoodies are now back in stock in all sizes! Order them at store.catalystgamelabs.com, and check out the store's new facelift while you're there. ...