opinions on.....

[rosco60559]

Long time player here, a local shop owner has a few people interested in our beloved game and he's trying to hook me up with these people for games.  They're very new and i was figuring on trying to run the campaigns out of the start collecting books with a couple small mods to keep things easy and hopefully keep their attention long than a couple weeks.

So opinion time, does the great hive mind here prefer the starter books campaign system or the other campaign book with the marauder on the front(sorry can't think of the title but i do own it)?  I know the later one goes really far down the rabbit hole for details.

[Sartris]

Campaign Operations is the book you're thinking of. The Starterbook: Sword and Dragon campaign framework is an early version of the Chaos Campaign rules. Campaign Operations is the most recent form of those rules, but with all the (optional) bells and whistles. Sword and Dragon is good from the standpoint that it's all laid out for you as the GM - you don't have to worry about making your own missions or setting up things like lists of gear available for purchase. Campaign Operations is more of a toolbox to build from scratch what Sword and Dragon already is.

The one thing that annoys me about Sword and Dragon is the prototype gear - it introduces players to the early forms of the recovered Helm Core equipment, but from a rules standpoint, that equipment is more complicated than the final versions because a lot of the pieces have extra rules to make them a worse version. My advice would be to either skip the prototype gear entirely or just use the final versions.

[MadCapellan]

Campaign Operations is really not an entry level rulebook - go for Sword & Dragon, it's really intended to walk new players through the experience of playing the game through linked scenarios.

[Frabby]

Was it Sword & Dragon where the mission tree was borked and errata'ed?

[Sartris]

https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=36415.0

a bit, yes

Mission: Recon (p. 66) Before Game Set-Up, add a new paragraph as follows: Special: Any time this track is indicated, the choosing player may use the Recon-in-Force track (p. 70) instead.

Mission: Beachhead (p. 72) Under Next Tracks, delete the "Scout" entry and replace "Holding Action" with "Fighting Withdrawal".

Mission: Pursuit (p, 72) Under Next Tracks, delete the "Holding Action" entry.

[Frabby]

Thanks Sartris.
Mind you, it's a good product. But without the errata it can be confusing or frustrating for new players. There was a thread about this in the BT section of the now defunct German Ulisses Spiele forum.

I can recommend Sword & Dragon, but any recommendation here should always also point to the errata.

[rosco60559]

thanks for the opinions gang.  I'm going to probably try going sword and dragon minus the proto-type gear, and let them roll up companies from the war of 3039 or brush wars books since there will be a bit more variety.