Like for thousands of others, the intro box is one of the primary
entrepôts into the BattleTech Universe. You’ve acquired a modest force of eight ‘Mechs (or ten if you went ham and also picked up the beginner box) and played a few games. So what now? How do you decide how to expand your experience in the face of thirty years of options? As it turns out, there are some natural inroads if you know where to look.
Though BattleTech is a game with an articulated and varied thematic periodization, the purpose of this guide is not to conform your interests to any specific era, but to provide scaffolded purchasing options based on what you already have. As you immerse yourself in the fiction of the BattleTech Universe, you will be able to make your own decisions about which era or eras you are most drawn to. Some enjoy employing the tech on the most bleeding edge while others have remained firmly ensconced in the same source material available in 1987. The key is to have fun.
This guide is primarily designed to help you take the first steps as someone unfamiliar with the myriad of options. I assume you, as a new player, are here for the giant, stompy robot action so the majority of my suggestions are geared toward 'Mech vs 'Mech combat. That said, I will provide some outlets for combined arms options. I have intentionally omitted discussion of
Alpha Strike, the abstracted, faster-playing BattleTech ruleset and have also so shied away from
A Time of War, the RPG system. I will leave promotion of the RPG system to someone who can do it justice with a more convincing sales pitch than I could provide.
Products listed in this document are available at store.catalystgamelabs.com or drivethrurpg.com.
If you are a returning player looking to get caught up on the changes to the game since you’ve been gone, I recommend the excellent primer prepared by mbear found
here.
If you have any further questions, comments, insults, etc., feel free to reply to this thread.
CONTENTS1. Further Reading
2. Navigating the Timeline
3. The Game Universe
4. Understanding The Product Line
5. Purchasing Guide
6. Resources and Freebies
7. Closing Thoughts
Further ReadingTo avoid completely overwhelming with a multipost wall of text, I am in the process of creating more in-depth guides for a number of topics, should they interest you. I recommend reading this initial guide first and then coming back to look at more specific items – I have simply placed them here for faster access.
The Product Catalog (1984-Present)A Guide for Running Chaos Campaigns by Demo Agent strategoslevel3Official Errata and Cover Image Changes for the Core RulesNAVIGATING THE TIMELINEThe BattleTech Universe is vast and contains no less than
twelve officially articulated eras. The complexity does not inherently increase in a linear fashion from one era to another, however. The Star League was more technologically advanced than the Succession Wars. Primitive gear came back into use during the Jihad alongside bleeding-edge prototypes. The key is to find what you find most enjoyable. Remember that the timeline was not developed in a linear fashion. The Universe was born
in media res, grounded in the year 3025, with sourcebooks produced detailing various events through about 3030. 1989’s
Twenty Year Update catapulted the timeline forward two decades, with the intervening years only receiving significant treatment after 2003. The Star League Era, originally portrayed as a lost Utopia received significant attention in 2012. I mention this to help explain why certain periods are much more “filled out” with Catalyst products than others. Many of the older sourcebooks books are available via PDF.
For a breakdown of modern (ie post-FASA) sourcebooks by era, check out my thread
here. My FASA sourcebook index can be found
here.
Age of War (2005-2570)
Star League (2571-2780)
The Succession Wars
Early Succession Wars (2781-2900)
Late Succession Wars - LostTech (2901-3019) <-- Beginner Box and GoAC Box fiction are set in this period
Late Succession Wars - Renaissance (3020-3049)
Clan Invasion (3050-3061) <-- Clan Invasion Box fiction
FedCom Civil War (3062-3067)
Word of Blake Jihad (3068-3080)
The Dark Age
Early Republic (3081-3100)
Late Republic (3101-3130)
Dark Ages (3131-3150) <-- MechWarrior Dark Age Miniatures Game
ilClan (3151+) <-- The current era
THE GAME UNIVERSEWith the success of the first manned jumpship in 2107, humanity gained the ability to leap from one star system to the next. Over the next four centuries, leap they would to every star they could reach. From this rapid and massive colonization effort sprung the embryos of the current interstellar empires. As these new protostates grew, they eventually grasped for the same resources and, predictably, descended into a brutal period known as the Age of War. During this series of bloody conflicts, the BattleMech emerged with the Terran Hegemony introducing the
Mackie in 2439, changing warfare forever. All of humankind would eventually be brought under the banner of the Star League either by treaty or force by 2600.
The unified interstellar empire of man imploded upon itself in 2766 after the usurper Stephan Amaris murdered the ruling family of the Star League, seized control of the Terran Hegemony, and left the Successor Lords of the five client states to bicker amongst themselves for supremacy. In their mutual grab for power, they collectively rebuked the savior from the Amaris tyranny, General Alexandr Kerensky. Stilted, Kerensky chose self-exile and fled the Inner Sphere with the bulk of the Star League’s massive army rather than allow them to be cannibalized in what he believed would ultimately be a futile war. The subsequent First (2786-2821) and Second (2830-2864) Succession Wars unleashed savage destruction that killed untold billions and caused advanced technology to almost completely disappear by the mid-thirtieth century.
The Third Succession War (2866-3025), marked a period of low-intensity warfare, rife with border raids and reprisals but few major operations. In 3028, two of the five interstellar empires, the Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth formed an alliance and attempted to swallow another in the Capellan Confederation in numerically-consistent Fourth Succession War (3028-3030). About the same time, the legendary mercenary unit, the Gray Death Legion, uncovered a facility containing schematics for extinct Star League technologies on the planet Helm.
Through the 3030s and 3040s, each Successor State worked independently to bring lost technologies back into production and successfully made several breakthroughs thanks to the Helm Core’s data, with a complete recovery of Star League weapons and equipment by the late 3040s. While such weapon systems had been recovered in anticipation of doing further battle with each other, the Successor States’ ambitions of reuniting the Star League was thwarted in early 3050 with the sudden return of General Kerensky’s children, now reformed as the Clans – a hyper-militaristic society armed to the teeth with more advanced technologies than had ever been seen in the Inner Sphere. The warriors from beyond the periphery had come on a crusade to bring the now-sundered empire of man to heel under their own vision of the Star League.
In the moment of maximum crisis as planet after planet fell to the clan onslaught, ComStar, the mysterious and purportedly neutral steward of the network of Hyperpulse Generators that made interstellar communication possible, unveiled their secret army that had been hidden the shadows for centuries. Anastasius Focht, Precentor Marshal of ComStar’s hidden army, challenged the invading clans to a proxy battle for Terra on the planet of Tukayyid. Miraculously, the untested ComGuard army defeated the combined forces of the Clans and bought the Inner Sphere a fifteen-year reprieve.
But peace would not last that decade in a half. The Inner Sphere banded together once again under the auspices of the Star League and struck back against the Clans. Operations Bulldog and Serpent would see the destruction of Clan Smoke Jaguar – the former assaulting the Clan on their conquered Kuritan worlds, the latter taking the fight directly to the Clans’ homeworlds far beyond the Inner Sphere. But while the reborn SLDF’s combined armies marched to victory, not all was calm throughout the Inner Sphere. The Clans continued their onslaught above the truce line and often turned against each other with Clans Falcon and Wolf nearly bleeding each other to death. Houses Marik and Liao launched an assault on an unsuspecting Federated Commonwealth after the discovery of a horrible secret and caused the collapse of imperial order. The fanatical Word of Blake, inheritors of the techno-religious traditions of ComStar took Terra from the holy order. Worse, while Victor Steiner-Davion fought the Clans in their own space, his sister, Katrina, plotted to seize the throne of the Federated Commonwealth. On his return, the largest of the stellar empires marched quickly toward Civil War.
As you noticed earlier, there is substantially more history to the BattleTech Universe – nearly another century! But for simplicity’s sake I’m going to stop before the start of another major era (also I'm up against the post size limit). The material available for the above-outlined history will provide you with more than enough material to get to started.
If you would like a more in-depth history of the Inner Sphere to the year 3067,
check out the Universe Guide. It’s a free PDF that had been included in the various iterations of the box set since around 2002.
UNDERSTANDING THE PRODUCT LINECORE RULESBeginning in 2006 with
Total Warfare, Catalyst began releasing the current generation of full rules. Each adds added layers of complexity to your games. Since their inception, these books have gone through varying levels of correction and revision. Below are the most current versions. See the errata page linked above which contains older covers to past printings.
BattleMech Manual:
Core Rules Option #1
* Rules for 'Mechs only
* Includes a number (but not all) of advanced weapons, equipment, and optional rules from
Tactical Operations* Quirks to customize your 'Mech's performance
* Abstract battlefield support system that makes adding artillery and airstrikes easier than ever.
* More clearly written and organized, taking lessons from the past fifteen years.
Total Warfare:
Core Rules Option #2
* In addition to 'Mechs, rules for most unit types including vehicles, aerospace, and infantry
*
Total Warfare +
Tactical Operations gives you the full spread of equipment and advanced rules (does not include quirks or the abstract support system)
TechManual* Construction rules for BattleMechs, IndustrialMechs, Protomechs, combat vehicles, support vehicles, infantry, battle armor, and aerospace units.
* Formulas for BattleValue 2.0 if you’re the kind of lunatic that does that sort of thing by hand.
Tactical Operations: Advanced Rules* Expanded rules for movement, combat, weather, and buildings
* Artillery, minefields, fire, and smoke
* Double-Blind rules
* Other miscellaneous rules
Tactical Operations: Advanced Units & Equipment* The goto for rules and construction data on all advanced and experimental equipment that becomes more and more prevelant in the Jihad and beyond
* If you plan to play past around 3067, this volume is strongly recommended
* Advanced rules for gameplay and construction of support units like airships, large navel vessels, trains, and mobile structures
Strategic Operations: Advanced Aerospace[NOTE: This is a revised volume. It no longer contains the BattleForce Rules]
* Rules for aerospace assets operating in space including warships, jumpships, dropships, and fighters
* Construction rules for those units and additionally for other spaceborne craft such as space stations and satellites
* Other miscellaneous rules that involve space operations like orbital insertions and boarding actions
Campaign Operations* Rules for creating and running a force
* Full rules for formation building as seen in the Clan Box
* Rules for Special Pilot Abilities as featured on pilot cards
* Salvage, customization, and repair rules [moved from StratOps]
* Solar system creation rules
* Rules for running both map- and narrative-based campaigns
* Full Chaos Campaign Ruleset
Interstellar Operations: Alternate Eras* A full account of technological advancement throughout the BattleTech timeline
* Rules for units and equipment found in specific eras of BattleTech history such as Land Air Mechs (LAMs), prototype equipment, and technological stepping stones
Interstellar Operations: BattleForce* Rules for BattleForce, Strategic BattleForce and the Abstract Combat System to run large engagements encompassing dozens or hundreds of units
* Rules for the Inner Sphere at War - a total war simulation involving the conquest of entire nations
OTHER PRODUCT SERIESThe following products will help fill out the broad and varied BattleTech Universe. I have limited my discussion to products actively produced by Catalyst (or at least has received relatively recent support)
Brush WarsThe vast majority of conflicts in the BattleTech universe go largely uncovered beyond a mention or short passage in a sourcebook. The Brush Wars series plans to explore some of those important, but otherwise loosely filled out events.
Spotlight On
Unit histories of some of the smaller, but more colorful outfits in BattleTech history. Each volume provides the unit's history, capabilities, and order of battle over time.
Technical Readouts (TROs)
These represent the bread and butter of BattleTech books going back to the 1980s - a
Janes-esque guide series for the BattleTech universe. Over a dozen saw print in various versions under multiple publishers. Since 2017, CGL has released a trio of era-focused, 'Mech-only volumes: Succession Wars, Clan Invasion, and Jihad. Each provides a selection of units from the original volumes. While TROs are not mandatory purchases, they act as a critical glue to the BattleTech Universe, giving some background and substance in an attempt to elevate BattleMechs beyond mere playing pieces. The original TROs are still available in PDF form if you desire a more complete experience - including other unit types.
Recognition Guide: ilClan
Intended as a showcase for the new Kickstarter art, the 32 volume RecGuide series reintroduces a plethora of classic 'Mechs, vehicles, and battle armor, and adds new variants utilizing cutting-edge technology for the battlefields of the 32nd century. Each volume includes at least one brand new unit. Record sheets for all featured units and variants included.
Touring the Stars
PDF-exclusive product highlights an eclectic mix of human-inhabited worlds across BT's history - both active and abandoned. Included in each writeup is a planetary history, ecology, seed ideas for a roleplaying group, and a planetary map for use with large-scale campaigns.
Turning Points
Catalyst released the Chaos Campaign framework a dozen years ago (!!) as a flexible, streamlined, abstracted campaign system for tracking unit missions and resources. The Turning Points series of PDF campaigns allows for players to create random forces or insert their own units in a wide variety of conflicts throughout the BattleTech timeline. I have recommended several below for use with your games.
MapsWith MapPack: Grasslands, CGL renewed one of BattleTech's oldest product lines. Four sets have been released so far.
PURCHASING GUIDE GAME ESSENTIALSMapPacks
Each contains between four and six double-sided maps providing unique options to expand your battlefield size and variety. Larger playing areas significantly impact how the game is played (for the better).
BattleMats
Many maps released in MapPacks have been converted into 34x22 neoprene, rollable battlefields. Each is the equivalent to two maps touching along the long edge.
BattleTech Reinforcements: Clan Invasion
This box brims with hundreds of standup counters representing all of the 'Mechs in the box set and Kickstarter as well as building counters to add some complexity. It also contains an exclusive map. Record sheets for all units are also included.
EXPANDING YOUR SUCCESSION WARS EXPERIRENCEThe
Beginner Box and
Game of Armored Combat box sets are placed near the end of the Third Succession War around the year 3025 – the original game setting. This period is marked predominantly by low-scale, small-unit actions as depicted in the average game of BattleTech. In order to seat your own experience within the rich universe, I have provided a number of options that require predominantly only the rules within the GoAC box.
Chaos Campaign: Succession Wars
This
free product set in the same era as the GoAC box set initiates players to the Chaos Campaign system used in a number of BattleTech products and provides a framework for basic, generic campaigns as well as suggestions for more interesting mission types and advance rules like minefields.
What you need: GoAC box, Record Sheets: Succession Wars, and (optional) Map Pack: Grasslands
House Arano: The Aurigan Coalition
Based on the source material from HBS's BattleTech video game, House Arano picks up where the game leaves off with the Restoration completed. Found within is a comprehensive description of Aurigan culture, society, and military strength along with profiles of major personalities. The book also contains a number of scenarios that are directly compatible with nothing but the GoAC box. Also included are descriptions and record sheets several new vehicles used in the 31st century periphery. Use of these combat units requires rules found in
Total Warfare. Note: This product is currently only available on drivethrurpg.com as both a PDF and Print on Demand softcover.
Technical Readout: Succession Wars
A compilation volume of designs from the Age of War in the 2500s through the Fourth Succession War, ending in 3030. These Mechs utilize a variety of technologies, including advanced equipment common during the Star League before the savage destruction of the early Succession Wars. Again, TROs aren’t required, but they give life and meaning to your combat units.
Record Sheets: Succession Wars
Provides 293 record sheets for the 93 ‘Mechs within
TRO: Succession Wars. A large number of them will not require any further rules than what you have with the box set. Others will require the
BattleMech Manual or
Total WarfareSuccession Wars-Based Turning Points
Using the rules from
Chaos Campaign: Succession Wars, player can recreate specific historical battles from the Succession Wars era.
What You Need: GoAC box, appropriate record sheets.
If you plan to use vehicles, infantry or other combat units,
Total Warfare is required. Note that these volumes will recommend specific out-of-print maps and unit random acquisition tables (RATs) from other books to broaden your unit choices, or rules from
Tactical Operations to simulate local planetary weather and terrain. Orbisonia and Tyrfing reference advanced variants that require rules in
Total Warfare or the
BattleMech Manual. They can be safely ignored without affecting the experience. Don't fret, all of this is optional and the Chaos Campaign rules will function normally without them.
Historical: Brush Wars 
NOTE: This volume will be released in the near future under the title Brush Wars: Vol 1 as a print on demand title.
Brush Wars, among one of the best sourcebooks to depict events during the Late Succession Wars era, covers three “minor” but important conflicts: Anton Marik’s Revolt, The Andurien Succession Crisis, and the Ronin War.
Historical: War of 3039
Nearly a decade after pushing the Capellan Confederation to the brink of annihilation, Hanse Davion’s Federated Commonwealth struck its other primary foe: the Draconis Combine. Another unqualified victory for the Davion-Steiner partnership would mean all but total domination of the Inner Sphere. But the mysterious ComStar saw its own interests threatened – without relative parity between the five major states, their position would become precarious. It was then that the Inner Sphere discovered that ComStar was not only the keeper of HPG technology, but a vast reserve of Star League BattleMechs. Many of these found their way into Combine regiments. While only seeing the most minor coverage in the
20 Year Update, the War of 3039 stands as one of the pivotal events preceding the Clan Invasion.
Era Report: 2750
While the Box Set places you in the early thirty-first century,
TRO: Succession Wars reaches back to far before that time during the height of the Star League’s empire. But the golden age of humanity was little more than a gilded prison. This guide gives an overview of the various member states of the League with their massive armies and foreshadows deeper issues that would lead to total collapse and apocalypse. Also included is a Chaos Campaign framework for designing your own scenarios with era-specific rules.
ON TO THE CLAN INVASIONDuring the decade of relative détente after the War of 3039, the great powers of the Inner Sphere settled back into the pre-Fourth Succession War doldrums of border raids and reprisals. But a storm was gathering on the coreward horizon. The products highlighted below will help you dip your toe into one of the most consequential periods in BattleTech History.
Clan Invasion Box Set
The fastest way to get you into the 3050s. Included are rules for advanced equipment, a star of OmniMechs, record sheets for upgrades to Inner Sphere 'Mechs from the GoAC box, and Clan Elemental battle armor. The box also provides rules for clan dueling, force building, and how to use the Master Units List (MUL).
Technical Readout: Clan Invasion
Kerensky's descendants returned to the Inner Sphere in 3050 to reunite the Star League of the Great Father by force. This volume provides a sampling of the forces used by both the Clans and the evolving resistance put up by the Great Houses between 3050 and 3062.
Record Sheets: Clan Invasion
Provides an additional 476 record sheets for the 93 mechs in
TRO: Clan Invasion. Almost all require
BattleMech Manual,
Total Warfare, or the
Clan Invasion Box Rules for use in your games.
Era Reports: 3052, 3062
Each era report fleshes out the political and military situation alluded to in the various TROs. Also included are frameworks for designing unique campaigns in the relevant era via the Chaos Campaign referenced above.
ER:3052 and
ER: 3062 could just as easily be named “Early Clan Invasion” and “Late Clan Invasion.” ER: 3052 focuses on the myriad of factions on both sides of the Inner Sphere-Clan conflict in the wake of ComStar’s improbable victory at the Battle of Tukayyid. 3062 checks in with the same stakeholders a decade later – all bracing themselves for the seemingly inevitable FedCom Civil War. Each volume gives a brief synopsis of how events have unfolded up to the date on the cover, an overview of the various factions, their leaders, and famous combat commands.
The Battle of Tukayyid
Originally planned as a PDF-only supplement along the lines of Chaos Campaign: Succession Wars, The Battle of Tukayyid has been expanded into a hardcover 200 page sourcebook and campaign book tracing the epic confrontation between the ComGuards and the seven invading Clans.
Clan Invasion-Era Turning Points
Like the Succession Wars, the Clan Invasion offers a variety of Turning Points campaign scenarios.
A Brief History LessonIn my extraordinarily short summary above, I mentioned that after the Amaris Civil War of the 2760s and 70s, Alexandr Kerensky chose self-imposed exile from the Inner Sphere rather than allow his army to be cannibalized and chewed up by the House Lords. The descendants of those exiles returned with a vengeance in 3049 as the Clans. How did the SLDF-in-exile transform into the militant tsunami bent on total conquest?
These three volumes briefly cover the arrival the SLDF in their new home, the brutal civil war and formation of a nascent Clan society, and the rise of hyper-advanced technology surpassing anything produced by the Star League.
Other TROs and Record Sheet Books
As previously mentioned, TRO: Succession Wars and TRO: Clan Invasion are compilation products made up of entries from several other TROs that have their own attendant record sheet volume (or volumes). Each contain additional variants for the units in TRO: Succession Wars or Clan Invasion, as well as a number of units not contained in those volumes. How do you know which to buy? Fear not, as I have compiled a list of what is found in each, including how many repeats are present. See the Google Sheet at
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LOrwtB9SPp1twxqpcTf3iOn2jkRdPGka2DVii-jauoE/edit#gid=989503846EXPANDING YOUR FORCESCGL ran a very successful Kickstarter to fund a Clan Invasion expansion box set - as part of the stretch goals for this KS are individual Lance (Inner Sphere) and Star (Clan) packs stuffed with classic Clan and IS designs reimagined in the new style found in the GoAC box. All forcepacks from the Kickstarter can be found on the CGL store as well as retailers worldwide. A new mercenary-themed Kickstarter will launch this fall that will add up to around fifty additional 'Mechs and Vehicles.
Iron Wind Metals
Iron Wind Metals produces the vast majority of BattleMechs in pewter. Most require between some and substantial assembly. You’ll need a hobby knife, a metal file, superglue, a pin vice, and a little patience. I started as an absolute beginner around 2009 and have since assembled over a thousand minis with my big clumsy hands so it’s certainly within your grasp.
European customers should check out
Ral Partha Europe. Note that they have not added new sculpts since around 2005 so it is not great for new models.
Out of Print Box Sets and Alpha Strike Lance PacksWhile both of these remain options, they are becoming exceedingly expensive and use sculpts far inferior to those of the Kickstarter.
The Free OptionFinally, if you’re desperate for playing pieces and don’t want to make any serious investments, I have devised several sets of paper standups. They are not ideal, but the price is right.
http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=53689.0RESOURCES AND FREEBIESOfficial Downloads:Chock full of freebies including the barebones
Chaos Campaign rules, digital record sheets for all of the Kickstarter minis, quickstart rules for a variety of systems, printable tokens, and old (but still canon) Dark Age materials from the WizKids era.
www.MasterUnitList.info: An official total resource for virtually every canon BattleTech including faction availability by era.
www.Sarna.net: The BattleTech Wiki filled with thousands of articles big and small on countless aspects of the BattleTech Universe.
www.MegaMek.org: An unofficial computerized version of BattleTech you can play against other people all over the world or against a bot. It implements the vast majority of game rules, including advanced options and a plethora of unofficial rules. Make sure your Java installation is up to date.
MegaMekLab: An editor that allows you to design your own custom units and print record sheets for virtually all known BattleTech units. Find the newest versions of the MegaMek suite of programs
herewww.SolarisSkunkWerks.com: Popular 'Mech and vehicle design software recently taken up by a new dev team. As a user for several years before moving on to MML, I can attest to its quality.
Fletch's Sheets - Online sheets with a twist - they allow for a certain level of interactive recordkeeping as you play. Interface is smooth and easy to use.
www.Mordel.net: Need full stats for a ‘Mech? Want a PDF of the record sheet? I don’t use it personally, but it’s a super high-quality effort that deserves a look.
Building, Fire, and Smoke Counters: Cutout counters for adding depth to your games.
LinkXotl’s Random Force Tables: Among the finest, best researched fan-created tables produced, these random tables will help build faction-flavored forces for the first half of the 31st century.
LinkCLOSING THOUGHTSI hope this helps. Suggestions for improving this document are always welcome. There is a lot to explore in this crazy universe. The pool is really deep if you want to dive that far. The key is to take on only what you're comfortable with and have fun.
