How do you deal with the loss of detail?

[iamfanboy]

That is a danger sometimes. I've have three different groups in three different states refuse to reach me BT/TW because, "We're deep in the Advanced Rules and don't want to dumb down our game to get you up to speed."

A long time ago ('96? '97? I was in highschool, but don't remember what grade) I had the opposite problem. Some friends from the anime group wanted to play Battletech at lunchtime with us wargaming geeks, and two of them - no matter what I tried - simply could not handle the game.

It was one of the first things that made me really THINK about gaming and how accessible it should be, but I buried it under a blizzard of bullshit. "Oh, maybe it's not for everyone, I guess that they weren't smart enough," and so on...

But since then I've reconsidered my position. How many people can understand and enjoy playing it is a big part of a game's value, at least to me.

[beachhead1985]

Unit roles are used for Formation Building, not (necessarily) as a "this is how you use this, new person!" tool-tip.  As such, you've fantastically missed the point of why less detail is attractive to new players.  It's not because they can't figure out 'Mech stats, it's because it is more fun to pick up a card and look at six numbers to take in all of the relevant information, then start playing than it is to pick up a record sheet and pore through all of the anywhere from 1 to 16 entries on the equipment table, find the ammunition for it in the critical hit diagram to determine efficient ammunition expenditure, note how many heat sinks are in the legs for standing in water, figure out where the armor is strong or weak, determine the maximum number or combination of which you can fire weapons in order to avoid catastrophically overheating, and then figure out the ranges at which those combinations function effectively.

To wit: when I can build a company and start rolling dice in ten minutes and my opponent who has been playing for maybe three months can do the same while being able to see everything important at a quick glance, they tend to have more fun.

Ah, see I've been playing battletech wrong for 18 years then.

I just bought some minis that looked cool and played with those. Had a blast. Later I made custom designs and played with those when I wanted to win. Given I've lost almost every game I've played, but that's true of everything i've ever done with dice to roll.

I'm just more about the story than winning. My buddy...nope...however many hours it takes to find the best combination of maximum armour and maximum targetting computers is the way he plays. "yeah; bro, I'll wait."

Wouldn't be the first time I've epic-missed the point of something, but I'm also pro at learning my own lessons from what people try and teach me, rather than what they want me to learn. I'm not totally sold on AS as is, but I think the next edition of it will be much, much better.

What? Oh, no, for frick's sake, it was supposed to have a  :P smiley after the "nerd plumage" line, and several others throughout the post. The whole tone of the post is WAY more aggressive without that one bit at the start, and I'm sorry for that.

I don't have anger about it, but I do have passion. The difference between AS and BT deeply touches on how I feel about gaming.

Gaming is a group activity, which should be accessible to as many people who want to sit at a table and sling dice as possible, and Battletech (though not as bad as other games of its generation!) has a subtle, patronizing hint of, "If you can't hack memorizing two dozen pages of rules and these ten basic tables, you can't play."

It's exclusionary, and I don't care for that any more.

Compare the X-Wing Miniatures Game rulebook to the first Battletech rulebook. Even including the FAQ, missions, and the rules for Epic ships, it doesn't even break 100 pages of a 8x6 pamphlet size, versus how many pages just in Total Warfare? 250+?

And yet X-Wing is highly intuitive, very tactical, easy to pick up, and fun right out of the box; I've seen fourth-grade kids and a 60-year-old man whose first mini-based game was X-Wing learn it within an hour and play it well within a few weeks.

Saying, "Oh, that's not possible with Battletech" is wrong, because that's Alpha Strike: intuitive, tactical, easy, and fun.

Total Warfare's scale would be much better suited to 1v1 play, and I'd definitely bring my books off the shelf if I ran a Solaris VII game. Bonus: TW and AS share so many concepts it'd be easy to scaffold upwards!

But I'll accept the sacrifice of detail for greater playability any day. If you don't want to do that, I'll understand, but I won't agree.

I play Attack wing, it's similar to x-Wing; I get the draw, even while the poor detail and ship design annoys me. Were I a real ST fan, I couldn't stand it.

BT just gives me things I can't get elsewhere. Had I the time to game in my life, I'd be playing BT exclusively.

I have my own views on the rule books and I empathize. I own em all now that CC is finally out, but unless a special case comes up last time we played we found the basic rules from the stater set adequate.

I probably shouldn't talk about it too much on here, but owning the PDFs, I copied the relevant sections from TW-IO into a compact aide de memoir.  I haven't had the chance to edit it or add the tables, but basically what I need from what? 1000pgs of rulebook? is right there.

I find the core mechanic behind BT is actually the second fastest wargame I've ever taught anyone after attack wing. Say what you will; it's intuitive. I say this as a guy who struggles over most new boardgames that get forced on me.

Like if epic battle is your battletech, yeah; AS is for you, but for me, frankly my battletech is more like MW characters getting into the cockpit and there the detail matters. Having a PPC or an ERPPC on your scorpion is going to matter a lot.

If I was to identify the core issue at the heart of the game, it isn't that BT is too complex, or that it's a wargame masquerading as a board game for reasons that still baffle me. It's that basically BT is an RPG trying to be a wargame.

[Scotty]

Ah, see I've been playing battletech wrong for 18 years then.

When did I say that? ???  I said it was more attractive for a new player to be able to put together a force and play in minutes with a collection of easily visible and understandable information.

BattleTech record sheets don't really qualify, or I wouldn't have to spend the first ten minutes of every Boot Camp session at Origins/GenCon working through the different parts of a record sheet and what they all mean.

[iamfanboy]

The only way to play a game wrong is to break the rules - and since we're comparing two different rules-sets, you're definitely not playing the game wrong.

But... I don't think that the core mechanic counts as simple.

Even in Total Warfare, there are 30+ possible conditions that could apply to a single attack roll. If it is a cluster weapon, you have to make another roll to see how many clusters hit. If that weapon hits,  it has to make another roll to see WHERE they hit. If it pierces armor, that's another roll to see if you inflict critical damage, then another roll to see what you damage with said critical.

That's between two and four rolls for one non-cluster weapon system, with potentially lots more than that. Even 'lightly' armed units can have 2-5 individual weapon systems, each of which may have a different target number thanks to their unique ranges. That's a lot of die rolling and calculation for a single unit.

People who've played the game for 10+ years don't notice it unless something unusual comes up, but there's a LOT that goes into just attacking.

And the cherry on top is that most of those shots over the course of a game will do nothing but mark some circles off of an enemy's armor box. Yes, we all remember the lucky Gauss headshots, but that's because something - despite all the odds of Battletech being against it! - actually happened. 

If I were to do a Solaris 7 RPG session, I'd use the Total Warfare system - provided I didn't just recreate the setting with Savage Worlds - but for actual, on the tabletop, against a live person? I'll take the simplest.

[Descronan]

But... I don't think that the core mechanic counts as simple.

Simple, yes, but very cumbersome. Roll to hit, roll location, roll for clusters, etc. etc. etc.

That's the main reason I went to AS. One roll, one target number, one chance for a crit. What Battletech was missing was the "Battle". It was "Squadtech" until Battleforce and Alpha Strike. Now it actually feels like a battle. We're doing 12 v 12 with infantry, aerospace fighters, support vehicles, artillery, etc. All of that stuff was unfathomable in Btech rules due to the slowness of play. Now it feels like a true war game.

[jglass]

CBT is a marvelous game.  I don't think any other rules set so perfectly captures the technical, gearhead detail of what's happening in the game.  It can really make you feel the game which is an incredible experience.  But, like iamfanboy said, it's a product of its time.  We think of rule design as a craft now, but back in the 70s and 80s, rules were very much an ends-justify-the-means thing.  Detail was seen as important, because that's where the value was perceived. This resulted in games being built around a web of multiple, complex rules systems that had no relation to each other, and CBT certainly has that in spades.  The designers weren't trying to be jerks, that's just where we were with game design at the time.

Now we live under a new aesthetic, where terms like 'elegant' and 'streamlined' are used to describe ideal games. That doesn't mean all games should be one way of course, but it does help to describe the expectations that are often placed on games.  CBT is a great game, but if left alone it would wither and die just as many great old games have done before it. It's too long.  Even old-school, hardcore gamers have trouble getting it to the table, because of that.  It's rules are too labyrinthine, and even games among old hands can come to a halt as rules are studied and debated. And of course, the rich, detailed BT background can intimidate or confuse people new to the game.  There are just too many barriers to entry, and too many reasons for CBT to sit on the shelf.  It's no mystery why Catalyst made Alpha Strike on the heels of Quick Strike.  It needed to happen.

The need for change is really apparent at convention tournaments.  Walk by any other game tables, and you'll see and hear players laughing or bemoaning their fates as the tides turn against them.  Armies clash, heroes are born in surprising moments, and an entire narrative happens in the course of two hours.  On the CBT tables?  A game ends after two hours, with one player's Vindicator sporting some lost paint.  It happens a lot.

We can still love CBT, bring it out every now and then (it's still best for duels or a little larger), but AS is the game we need to keep BT alive.  It brings in new blood, keeps old hands playing it, and ensures more books and minis get made. And it's a hell of a lot of fun too.

[Son of Kerenski]

Great first post jglass  O0

The need for change is really apparent at convention tournaments.  Walk by any other game tables, and you'll see and hear players laughing or bemoaning their fates as the tides turn against them.  Armies clash, heroes are born in surprising moments, and an entire narrative happens in the course of two hours.  On the CBT tables?  A game ends after two hours, with one player's Vindicator sporting some lost paint.  It happens a lot.

Also arguments over rules and/or the lack of knowledge regarding them. Witnessed first hand. Im often asked whilst playing my own tournament match what a rule is in someone elses game. One of the reasons I haven't played in any the last couple of years.

[wantec]

What 10% is missing?

For me the thing that's missing is the chance for through-armor criticals and one-shot decapitations of enemy 'Mechs.

[NeonKnight]

For me the thing that's missing is the chance for through-armor criticals and one-shot decapitations of enemy 'Mechs.

to be honest I'm of mixed emothions on that.

On the one hand, they are awesome when they happen, like One Shot PPC hitting an annoying Spider then rolling double-6's for the crit to blow the leg off...TAKE THAT!

On the flip side, they can ruin a learning game or even a campaign storyline:

OK Guys, you need to Escort Pilot So-n-so off the field, Enemy needs a 12, double-6, enemy rolls for hit location, Double-6: HEAD SHOT! BOOM!....and there goes the mission objective, in one second.

[Son of Kerenski]

For me the thing that's missing is the chance for through-armor criticals and one-shot decapitations of enemy 'Mechs.

And Im exactly the opposite.

Thats what annoys the hell out of me in BT. Keep it there. Dont bring it into AS.

[theagent]

Always loved the AC/20, ER PPC, and LRM 20s.  So much pain.  How do you deal with the loss of detail?  What's the difference now between a Large Laser boat and one that carries an AC/20?

Do mechs "lose" their weapons in combat?  ie, you lose your AC/20 due to a torso crit or the torso being blown off?  IIRC, some mechs also suffered from low ammo counts, like it can only fire LRMs maybe 4-6 times then it'll be out of ammo.  Obviously, ammo tracking is no longer done in AS, so how do players make this jump between the two concepts?

I'm really on the fence regarding AS, mainly because of the loss of detail.

Fine details are somewhat lost.  But you have those special abilities.  Remember, it's about more than just "Mechs Alpha, Beta & Gamma both do X/Y/Z damage at Short/Medium/Long ranges & have the same armor/structure points".  Mech Alpha might be the Large Laser boat, so its ENE special ability means it ignores any ammo explosion criticals.  Mech Beta had that AC/20, so it has the AC special ability that lets it use special ammo like precision ammo.  And maybe Mech Gamma had dual LRM-20s, so it has both the LRM special ability (also for specialty ammo) & the IF special ability that lets it make indirect fire attacks with the help of a spotter.  Small things that aren't as detailed as Total Warfare gameplay, but enough to differentiate them even if all other stats are identical.

As for losing weapons, IIRC there's a critical result that reduces a Mech's attack values (1 per hit, I believe), which takes the place of losing weapons.  And those units that don't have the "legal" amount of ammo in Total Warfare gameplay reduce their normal damage value for conversion purposes to 75% if they don't have enough ammo (i.e. the Hunchback IIC, with its dual Clan UAC/20s but only 10 rounds total of ammo is a prime example), to approximate the pilots having to be careful with their limited ammo.

To my mind, however, the biggest change you'll notice is how much more lethal it can be for light units, & even some mediums or heavies.  Take, for example, the beloved WSP-1A Wasp, with 2 armor & 2 structure points.  Now, in TW gameplay, it fears the mighty AC/20, but even a single hit from one doesn't guarantee the death of the Wasp; unless you hit the Left Torso to explode the SRM-2 ammo, hit the Head to vaporize the pilot, or core it through the Center Torso from the front, it'll be severely hurt/crippled but still usable if hit anywhere else.  And even, say, a VTR-9B Victor could theoretically have everything hit, only to see the AC/20 "only" take out the Right Leg & Right Torso (with the Right Arm flying over the hill), while the MLs & SRM-4 are 'wasted' on the other parts of the Wasp. In Alpha Strike, however, if the Victor hits the Wasp, the Wasp is 100% dead:  4 points from the Victor takes out the Wasp's armor & structure simultaneously, insta-gibbing it.  So unless you have a light vs. light battle on your hands, your lights & mediums will mostly blow up, with the heavies & assaults actually suffering criticals before erupting into flames.

[wantec]

to be honest I'm of mixed emothions on that.

On the one hand, they are awesome when they happen, like One Shot PPC hitting an annoying Spider then rolling double-6's for the crit to blow the leg off...TAKE THAT!

On the flip side, they can ruin a learning game or even a campaign storyline:

OK Guys, you need to Escort Pilot So-n-so off the field, Enemy needs a 12, double-6, enemy rolls for hit location, Double-6: HEAD SHOT! BOOM!....and there goes the mission objective, in one second.

And Im exactly the opposite.

Thats what annoys the hell out of me in BT. Keep it there. Dont bring it into AS.

While it can be annoying to be on the bad end of one of those hits, that change does impact the value of certain units. Something like a Hunchback, a Hetzer, a Pack Hunter are less of a battlefield threat in Alpha Strike than in TW. My big frustration with Alpha Strike has been how some of the lack of detail has changed the value of units. Ideally, a game played at AS scale would play like one played at TW scale.

[ActionButler]

While it can be annoying to be on the bad end of one of those hits, that change does impact the value of certain units. Something like a Hunchback, a Hetzer, a Pack Hunter are less of a battlefield threat in Alpha Strike than in TW.

I think that I understand this perspective, but those big gun units still pack a lot of umph in Alpha Strike.  A Hunchback will no longer headshot an assault mech to death, true, but what it loses in OSK potential, it gains in taking off chunks of armor that cannot be hidden or ignored.  The damage that an Alpha Strike Hunchback does goes to the same location that every other Alpha Strike weapon already has shot up, or will shoot up.  In effect, it gives up its ability to deliver a rare coup de grace in favor of always throwing tons of damage at the same spot that every other attack also deals damage to.

Now... that being said... I would not be opposed to certain large weapons (AC20s, Gauss Rifles, etc) being allowed an automatic crit roll in Alpha Strike to simulate the potential catastrophic damage. 

[Atlas3060]

The loss in detail is something I'm willing to sacrifice if what I gain back is the usefulness of "bad" designs using "less than optimal" weapons.
As said earlier, designs I would scoff and ignore in Total Warfare I now have to honestly see as a deadly force.
The "trooper" 'Mechs actually are that, well rounded units that can provide good cover for any army.

Meanwhile the big Juggernauts might not have the OSK ability, but that's why there's special pilot abilities in my opinion.
There's a lot more focus on team play rather than dueling and the occasional support from a nearby 'Mech.

That isn't to say I don't like Total Warfare. I do, but if I'm playing a bigger battle outside of a personal duel, I might lean towards Alpha Strike more. Both are useful tools for my tool box. No different than the more abstract game modes fulfilling my desires to go higher up the rank chain.

[Son of Kerenski]

While it can be annoying to be on the bad end of one of those hits, that change does impact the value of certain units. Something like a Hunchback, a Hetzer, a Pack Hunter are less of a battlefield threat in Alpha Strike than in TW. My big frustration with Alpha Strike has been how some of the lack of detail has changed the value of units. Ideally, a game played at AS scale would play like one played at TW scale.

So play with Armor Piercing ammo and get your chance to kill a mech thru armor back.

Armor piercing ammunition applies a +1 to-hit modifier to the attack, whether it is made using only the AC special ability, or as part of the unit’s standard weapon attack. When an attacker using armor piercing ammunition delivers a successful attack, reduce the damage value for the AC attack by 1, to a minimum of 1 damage point. the attacker then rolls 2D6. If the result is 10 or better, the attacker rolls once on the target’s Critical Hit table, even if it still has armor points remaining. this effect occurs whether or not the unit delivers a standard weapon attack or an attack using only its AC special ability. If the target is an aerospace or infantry unit (including battle armor), armor piercing ammunition is treated as standard autocannon fire, neither suffering a damage loss nor delivering the extra chance for a critical hit.

[mike19k]

...

Gaming is a group activity, which should be accessible to as many people who want to sit at a table and sling dice as possible, and Battletech (though not as bad as other games of its generation!) has a subtle, patronizing hint of, "If you can't hack memorizing two dozen pages of rules and these ten basic tables, you can't play."

It's exclusionary, and I don't care for that any more.

I am sorry for your experiences that made you feel that it's exclusionary. What I have found is that Alpha Strike comes across as super patronizing, as it feels like we have to dumb down the game or people will not play it. My local group's only has two games that we play regularly Battletech two weekends a month, and Shadow of Brimstone one weekend a month. My local game store tried (and keeps trying) to get AS off the ground but almost all of our (about a dozen regular players) battletech group can not stand it.

CBT is a marvelous game.  I don't think any other rules set so perfectly captures the technical, gearhead detail of what's happening in the game.  It can really make you feel the game which is an incredible experience.  But, like iamfanboy said, it's a product of its time.  We think of rule design as a craft now, but back in the 70s and 80s, rules were very much an ends-justify-the-means thing.  Detail was seen as important, because that's where the value was perceived. This resulted in games being built around a web of multiple, complex rules systems that had no relation to each other, and CBT certainly has that in spades.  The designers weren't trying to be jerks, that's just where we were with game design at the time.

Now we live under a new aesthetic, where terms like 'elegant' and 'streamlined' are used to describe ideal games. That doesn't mean all games should be one way of course, but it does help to describe the expectations that are often placed on games.  CBT is a great game, but if left alone it would wither and die just as many great old games have done before it. It's too long.  Even old-school, hardcore gamers have trouble getting it to the table, because of that.  It's rules are too labyrinthine, and even games among old hands can come to a halt as rules are studied and debated. And of course, the rich, detailed BT background can intimidate or confuse people new to the game.  There are just too many barriers to entry, and too many reasons for CBT to sit on the shelf.  It's no mystery why Catalyst made Alpha Strike on the heels of Quick Strike.  It needed to happen.

It is a mystery to me why they needed to make it, from what I have read here most people find that AS is much faster playing, but the few times that I have played it took just as long with the same number of units but fewer players and less detail. So from what I have seen I do not understand the draw to it.

...

Saying, "Oh, that's not possible with Battletech" is wrong, because that's Alpha Strike: intuitive, tactical, easy, and fun.

Total Warfare's scale would be much better suited to 1v1 play, and I'd definitely bring my books off the shelf if I ran a Solaris VII game. Bonus: TW and AS share so many concepts it'd be easy to scaffold upwards!

But I'll accept the sacrifice of detail for greater playability any day. If you don't want to do that, I'll understand, but I won't agree.

To me the lack of detail, and what looks like random pick and choose of what rules they do or do not bring into AS from BT makes it unplayable to me. I do kind of agree with you but reversed I do not understand but am willing to agree that to each their own. And in the end it does not matter if I like the game or not, but if others do good for them. I do get the feeling that the powers that be do not care about battletech and only care about AS. The more that the AS fans tell me that it will never happen does nothing to reduce my fears. And the way that most hardcore AS fans "point" this out to me comes across as very demeaning, and if anything turns me off even more.

...

We can still love CBT, bring it out every now and then (it's still best for duels or a little larger), but AS is the game we need to keep BT alive.  It brings in new blood, keeps old hands playing it, and ensures more books and minis get made. And it's a hell of a lot of fun too.

I find it interesting how much I hear that BT is only good for "duels or a little larger" and that AS is for company on company or larger. Now maybe my local group is not normal (I do not know but every group I have played in has been more or less the same) but we normally do full company (10 to 12 mech and 2 fighters) on two WOB Level II's in about four to five hours. Several of our players know almost no rules, they are just there to roll dice (we have to figure out their to hit numbers and all). We had one new player join our group coming from AS but did not stick around long.

While it can be annoying to be on the bad end of one of those hits, that change does impact the value of certain units. Something like a Hunchback, a Hetzer, a Pack Hunter are less of a battlefield threat in Alpha Strike than in TW. My big frustration with Alpha Strike has been how some of the lack of detail has changed the value of units. Ideally, a game played at AS scale would play like one played at TW scale.

I agree that I want it to play like BT, and like I said above the rules that they pick to include and exclude drive me nuts.

So play with Armor Piercing ammo and get your chance to kill a mech thru armor back.

    Armor piercing ammunition applies a +1 to-hit modifier to the attack, whether it is made using only the AC special ability, or as part of the unit’s standard weapon attack. When an attacker using armor piercing ammunition delivers a successful attack, reduce the damage value for the AC attack by 1, to a minimum of 1 damage point. the attacker then rolls 2D6. If the result is 10 or better, the attacker rolls once on the target’s Critical Hit table, even if it still has armor points remaining. this effect occurs whether or not the unit delivers a standard weapon attack or an attack using only its AC special ability. If the target is an aerospace or infantry unit (including battle armor), armor piercing ammunition is treated as standard autocannon fire, neither suffering a damage loss nor delivering the extra chance for a critical hit.

This is a case in point they add a +1 to hit if you are using armor piercing ammo, but if you have a targeting computer they do not add a -1 to hit but instead have it do more damage (but only if you hit). And then they have it do less damage, why? In BT it does have the +1 to hit, but does not do less damage, so I do not understand, why they picked what part of the rules to use and what part to ignore.

Always loved the AC/20, ER PPC, and LRM 20s.  So much pain.  How do you deal with the loss of detail?  What's the difference now between a Large Laser boat and one that carries an AC/20?

Do mechs "lose" their weapons in combat?  ie, you lose your AC/20 due to a torso crit or the torso being blown off?  IIRC, some mechs also suffered from low ammo counts, like it can only fire LRMs maybe 4-6 times then it'll be out of ammo.  Obviously, ammo tracking is no longer done in AS, so how do players make this jump between the two concepts?

I'm really on the fence regarding AS, mainly because of the loss of detail.

So I guess getting back to the original question. I have tried the game half a dozen times and every time did not enjoy it, the lack of detail ruins it for me. I think that the game is just fine, but it is not battletech in the slightest to me, if it was released as its own game (not affiliated at all with battletech) I would have probably liked it , but without any of the feel (to me at least) of the game it is supposed to represent makes it unplayable.

[wantec]

This is a case in point they add a +1 to hit if you are using armor piercing ammo, but if you have a targeting computer they do not add a -1 to hit but instead have it do more damage (but only if you hit). And then they have it do less damage, why? In BT it does have the +1 to hit, but does not do less damage, so I do not understand, why they picked what part of the rules to use and what part to ignore.

I think the damage reduction was because the specialty AC ammo bins only have half as many rounds as standard ammo bins. In the conversion rules to get from TW stats to AS ones, if you have less than a certain number of shots per weapon the damage value of that weapon is reduced. The damage reduction must have been the best way to account for specialty AC ammo having less shots per ton.

[jglass]

I am sorry for your experiences that made you feel that it's exclusionary. What I have found is that Alpha Strike comes across as super patronizing, as it feels like we have to dumb down the game or people will not play it. My local group's only has two games that we play regularly Battletech two weekends a month, and Shadow of Brimstone one weekend a month. My local game store tried (and keeps trying) to get AS off the ground but almost all of our (about a dozen regular players) battletech group can not stand it.

The meta and gameplay can be quite robust when fully explored (in fact one of the things that has impressed me so much, is just how great the meta can be despite losing the detail of TW). I have noticed that some new AS players come to it from TW, and still play, or rather try to play, as if it was TW.  That will usually let you down.

I do get the feeling that the powers that be do not care about battletech and only care about AS. The more that the AS fans tell me that it will never happen does nothing to reduce my fears. And the way that most hardcore AS fans "point" this out to me comes across as very demeaning, and if anything turns me off even more.

I get that, and think you might be right.  I'd guess the classic game will always stick around, but I suspect the degree to which it does will be significantly reduced over time. The devs will naturally follow the money, and based on their publishing choices it looks like AS has been very successful.

I agree that I want it to play like BT, and like I said above the rules that they pick to include and exclude drive me nuts.

I couldn't agree more.  Some parts of AS are brilliantly boiled down, but there still areas where I wonder why the devs felt the need for so much detail. It breaks the intuitiveness of the overall system rules. It's still far easier to digest than TW (at least for me).

[Lboydmsw]

Classic Battletech is simply too rules heavy for a lot of people.  This is especially true for younger gamers (See also, not all younger gamers).  Granted that the full introductory rules are not as complicated as things can get but it is still very rules heavy and has a considerable amount of charts and tables to review.  It is very discouraging for people.  I have a regular table top gaming group who pretty much just straight up refuses to play Battletech.  I tried to get some of them to play the "quick start" intro rules that came in the intro box and they felt that even that was too complex to be enjoyable. (Mind you this group plays some really complicated and long drawn out games)

I like Classic Battletech and play it semi regularly but with a completely different group of people.  I have played all different sized games, from mech on mech all the way up to around company on company. I even once did a Battalion on Battalion game but basically, three to four players on a team were going simultaneously. 

I find Battletch most enjoyable under 2 conditions 1) everyone knows the rules well enough that the game can keep moving.  2) idol side chatter that is not related to the game in progress is kept to a minimum as to not slow game play or interfere.  Battletech can be a slow game and anything that makes it go slower can be damaging.  In fact if I have a really slow and grinding game, it will result in me not touching the game for a few months afterwards.  When everyone is focused and knows what is going on, it can be a ton of fun with a lot of memorable moments. However, I refuse to play a game that is above lance on lance if the other player is not very familiar with the rules because it is just going to take too long. 

I enjoy Alpha Strike but have found that some of the local players who are a bit older and started when it was still Battledriods or freshly retitled Battletech tend to be less favorable towards Alpha Strike, which is purely from nostalgia interference.  I think Alpha Strike does a great job at streamline the game while still keeping a "Battletech feel". It is certainly different but I have really enjoyed it every time I played.  It scratched that itch while not sinking my whole day.  The only exception to this was the first time all of the older local guys tried it out at our game store and there was so much chatter about how it wasn't as good, or didn't make sense, or didn't feel like Battletech that the game went on forever.

I say it is nostalgia interference or "nostalgia butt hurt" because a lot of the local players in my area also play warhammer, warmachine, flames of war, or bolt action because it is "easier" (or at least less complex) to play then Battletech and games tend to take less time (or you can have a really big battle in an equivalent amount of time) but they then say that Alpha Strike is "wrong" for some reason.  However, newer and younger players who do not have experience with the Classic game tend to really enjoy Alpha Strike from what little I have seen.

I like both games but for different reasons. I love that Alpha Strike has a "Battletech" feel to it even if it isn't a direct sliming down of the rules. Alpha Strike is a good move for the company, it has a nice Battletech flavor while being not too far off from modern miniature wargames. It appeals to younger players while being similar in style to wargames which a lot of veteran Battletech players are also involved in or have moved on to. The next move is to do a Kickstarter for Iron Wind to transition it's Battletech line to plastic the way Reaper has done with their Bones line at this point. That would drop the price point of getting into Alpha Strike (and by extension Battletech) considerably which would be a good incentive for people to get involved.  It would also make it easier for people to span different eras.  I understand that most people have their preferred era to play in but I honestly belief that one of the major reasons people won't play outside of their "favorite era" is because they don't have the minis and it is too expensive to justify the expense when Battletech isn't that wide spread like say warhammer or warmachine is.

With all of that in mind, I still see younger players interested in learning about Classic Battletech when they see it being played.  However, because of the complexity and pace of the typical game most don't stick around. (Also outdated aesthetics on some Minis adds insult to injury)

[Son of Kerenski]

This is a case in point they add a +1 to hit if you are using armor piercing ammo, but if you have a targeting computer they do not add a -1 to hit but instead have it do more damage (but only if you hit). And then they have it do less damage, why? In BT it does have the +1 to hit, but does not do less damage, so I do not understand, why they picked what part of the rules to use and what part to ignore.

You also have to consider that not every weapon on a mech is tied into a TC. Some have Missiles so its not accurate to give a blanket -1 to all AS mechs with a TC.

Otherwise you are just further convoluting the rules.

[mike19k]

You also have to consider that not every weapon on a mech is tied into a TC. Some have Missiles so its not accurate to give a blanket -1 to all AS mechs with a TC.

Otherwise you are just further convoluting the rules.

I understand that not every weapon is tied into the targeting computer, also not all can use armor piercing ammo so it looks like you do not have a point. But if you are going to make rules that let some of your weapons have a +1, why not let some have a -1? So it is not "convoluting the rules" it is saying that they are picking and choosing what rules that they incorporate.

[iamfanboy]

I am sorry for your experiences that made you feel that it's exclusionary. What I have found is that Alpha Strike comes across as super patronizing, as it feels like we have to dumb down the game or people will not play it.

If I was firing an LRM-20 and rolled a 7, how many missiles would I hit with?

Did you know the answer without looking at the table?

Then you've internalized the rules, memorized them to the same degree I have - I haven't played an actual game of Battletech since 2008, and yet I still knew without looking that it was 12.

THAT'S what speeds up Battletech and makes it playable: rote memorization. Now, it speeds up pretty much every game, but no other modern wargame has multiple tables with a dozen or more modifiers or results to memorize - Warmachine DOES have its Attack modifier table, but even that is just one table with 15 entries.

And lots of people can't memorize those tables, and get tired of looking back and forth from the cheatsheet to the table to consult the to-hit modifier table, then the cluster table, then the location table, then maybe the crit table... all with no real effect on the game for at least the half of the game.

Those players are excluded.

It is a mystery to me why they needed to make it, from what I have read here most people find that AS is much faster playing, but the few times that I have played it took just as long with the same number of units but fewer players and less detail.

Seriously, you don't want to admit why they made it? Then let me spell it out for you: Evolve or die.

Alpha Strike isn't competing with Battletech, it's competing with Malifaux. And Warmachine. And Infinity. And Warhammer 40k. And X-Wing. All of which offer a smooth gameplay experience without needing to memorize 4-9 different tables for a fun time, and which have readily visible causes and effects - when I aim Misaki at Pandora and trigger Assassinate, I KNOW he has to discard two cards or let Pandora die. When I trigger Maddox1's feat, I KNOW the schwerpunkt moment has come.

Battletech... is boring. It's boring. It's boring to learn, it's boring to play, and who would want to waste time on it when they could be flying Darth Vader at Han Solo and making pew-pew noises as they reveal dials?

Alpha Strike is not boring. There's clear consequence and reward for every move and every failed roll, and it doesn't require a lot of special rules like TACs and PSRs to make things happen while you wait for armor to gradually get sanded down.

I do get the feeling that the powers that be do not care about battletech and only care about AS.

I'm not going to bullshit you: I think they care more about Alpha Strike. They may care about Battletech, but AS is more important, because it's the future of their company at stake.

I find it interesting how much I hear that BT is only good for "duels or a little larger" and that AS is for company on company or larger. Now maybe my local group is not normal (I do not know but every group I have played in has been more or less the same) but we normally do full company (10 to 12 mech and 2 fighters) on two WOB Level II's in about four to five hours. Several of our players know almost no rules, they are just there to roll dice (we have to figure out their to hit numbers and all). We had one new player join our group coming from AS but did not stick around long.

Kinda thought you were BS'ing me above, now I know. I've done a BATTALION on BATTALION Alpha Strike game, with two new players (each with a company or so of 'Mechs), in 4~ hours. Company v. Company takes maybe two hours.

And I didn't have to mollycoddle any of my players to do it. They quickly grasped what was a good and bad idea, understood the capabilities of each of their units at a single glance, and was enjoying the game within 15 minutes of explanation.

So I guess getting back to the original question. I have tried the game half a dozen times and every time did not enjoy it, the lack of detail ruins it for me. I think that the game is just fine, but it is not battletech in the slightest to me, if it was released as its own game (not affiliated at all with battletech) I would have probably liked it , but without any of the feel (to me at least) of the game it is supposed to represent makes it unplayable.

Alpha Strike is Battletech, just distilled. It gets you the same thing (giant stompy robots versus other giant stompy robots), but does it a helluva lot faster. It has all the same mechanics as Battletech, just taken to their logical simplification point instead of letting them remain complicated for no reason other than "this is the way we've always done it."

After all, what is "Heat" but the idea of gaining a short-term advantage in firepower for a handicap later on? Why have two different skill numbers when one can do the job? Why have a bunch of different weapons with weapon ranges that can wildly vary or come so close it's easy to confuse when the point is "This weapon is short-range, this weapon is medium-range, this weapon is long-range?"

I do understand where you're coming from, but I disagree. Your words remind me of an old, OLD review of D&D 3rd: "This isn't the game I know and love." He was mostly complaining about the removal of THAC0 and how it made the game 'too easy' for players. Why should a game's rules be hard for players to understand? 

[Son of Kerenski]

I understand that not every weapon is tied into the targeting computer, also not all can use armor piercing ammo so it looks like you do not have a point. But if you are going to make rules that let some of your weapons have a +1, why not let some have a -1? So it is not "convoluting the rules" it is saying that they are picking and choosing what rules that they incorporate.

I do have a point but youve obviously missed it.

The damage an AS mech does if for all its weapons. Missiles included. So again it doesnt make sense to give it a -1 to hit.

AP ammo as originally written in TW is only usable by standard and light ACs.

Only mechs with Standard and Light ACs in Alpha Strike have a AC special ability... therefore are the only ones capable of using AP ammo. Its a special ability for that reason.

Pretty simple stuff really.

[Lboydmsw]

Battletech... is boring. It's boring. It's boring to learn, it's boring to play, and who would want to waste time on it when they could be flying Darth Vader at Han Solo and making pew-pew noises as they reveal dials?

This is the only statement that I would disagree with but that's personal opinion.  I k now a lot of people who find it boring because of how detailed and complicated it is.  Rules heavy does not always equal fun and the amount of charts is super intimidating for people but I personally find it fun to play.  I really, really like Alpha Strike though.....as again I agree with everything else you said.

I do understand where you're coming from, but I disagree. Your words remind me of an old, OLD review of D&D 3rd: "This isn't the game I know and love." He was mostly complaining about the removal of THAC0 and how it made the game 'too easy' for players. Why should a game's rules be hard for players to understand?

  This, so much this.  I think that there is nothing wrong with having a game that is easy to understand and easy to get into, the easier a game is to grasp the easier it is to get people into.  The amount of rules that battletech has is a huge barrier for most people. Just as 3rd edition was a natural evolution, alpha strike is the natural evolution of Battletech.

[NeonKnight]

I do understand where you're coming from, but I disagree. Your words remind me of an old, OLD review of D&D 3rd: "This isn't the game I know and love." He was mostly complaining about the removal of THAC0 and how it made the game 'too easy' for players. Why should a game's rules be hard for players to understand?

Oh God! That's the one thing I remember trying to explain to people why it was a good thing.

IT WAS THE SAME DURN NUMBER THAT NEEDED TO BE ROLLED!

Instead of going from AC 10 was the worst and then GOING DOWN to 0 and ultimately into the negatives, the chart simply said, OK, AC 10 is still the worst but now goes UP instead, so No Armor + Shield was now AC 11 instead of AC 9. And for a 1st level character, to hit this with no bonuses would require a d20 roll of....11 EITHER WAY!

But personally, I find it funny how much people cry about how AS is killing BATTLETECH and yet, D&D minis survived as an offshoot of D&D for years and never replaced D&D  8)

[Lorcan Nagle]

Oh God! That's the one thing I remember trying to explain to people why it was a good thing.

IT WAS THE SAME DURN NUMBER THAT NEEDED TO BE ROLLED!

That'd be like someone complaining when BattleTech went from base to-hit number based on range, + or - 1 per number above or below 4 of your gunnery skill, to gunnery skill with a range modifier.

The to-hit number didn't change, but it became so much easier to work out and explain.

[NeonKnight]

That'd be like someone complaining when BattleTech went from base to-hit number based on range, + or - 1 per number above or below 4 of your gunnery skill, to gunnery skill with a range modifier.

The to-hit number didn't change, but it became so much easier to work out and explain.

Oh, I know.

I remember one pretty much needed the tables for 1st and 2nd edition to figure out out what die result on needed.

Now:

Me: What's your AC
You: 32
Me: Hmmm, I have a 14 to hit, so....*rolls dice*  17! 17 + 14 = 31...Miss :(

[iamfanboy]

Grognards of all stripes can be summed up in a single sentence:

People don't like change.

We want things to be familiar, the way we "remember" it, not knowing that our own memories are false; our brains delete or edit the difficulties we faced, making them seem smaller and easily overcome in retrospect and amping up the current problems to truly epic proportions.

The only problem is that this collides with the stone-cold, immutable fact that change is inevitable. It is going to happen. There is sometimes a regressive backlash when change occurs and the people who were made comfortable by the new way don't pay enough attention to the grievances of those who were made uncomfortable, but that doesn't stop the tides of change for long.

Hm? Alpha Strike? D&D? Oh, sorry, was thinking about something else. Events of the... last few days... have forced me to be somewhat philosophical.


Yes, Alpha Strike loses a lot of detail compared to Battletech. On the other hand, it starts on a simple basement level where we can gradually add more detail as time goes by - pilot abilities, formations, variable damage, REARx/y, Quirks, and so on.

Comparing it to the shift from D&D 2 to 3 is okay, but a better comparison would be going from the 3d6 attribute system to one that is ONLY the +/-; let's say a system where you have a limit of +5 and you can add up to -3 to make your positive Attribute total +8. So a Paladin might have STR+2/DEX-1/CON+3/WIS+1/INT-2/CHA+2.

That cuts the confusing cruft down even further, but would it still be D&D without a 3d6 system? To some, yes; D&D is more about the setting than the mechanics. To others, no; that 3d6 roll is a part of the tradition of D&D and losing it would mean losing that connection back to Gygax's first xeroxed book.

[Von Ether]

That'd be like someone complaining when BattleTech went from base to-hit number based on range, + or - 1 per number above or below 4 of your gunnery skill, to gunnery skill with a range modifier.

The to-hit number didn't change, but it became so much easier to work out and explain.

My god, I forgot that happened. Yet how many TW players use base numbers now?

The attraction of detail, beyond the pride of mastery and rote memorization, is that a player falls in love with a shtick.

Some love OSK, some love LAMs, some love ignoring tiny Lights as they "chessmaster" an Atlas' movement and arcs of fire, and - I kid you not - some love how boats do a ballet of death on a hex board lake.

This is their CBT. It maybe different than their friend's BT, but that's how headcanon goes.

When AS streamlines out their pet trick, it "fails" to be Battletech-y enough for them.

It makes me curious how many of those players would sigh and pack up their figs if TW was retooled to cut out their shtick?

I know at least three guys who already did so over LAMs. And Lord help a gamer who brought up the words "Battletech" with ear shot of them. I heard the same LAM complaints at least five times a year for years.

[glitterboy2098]

Alpha strike is a LAM paradise, to be honest. the rules in the AS companion make them so easy to play.. but keep them from being all-powerful uber-units. you still have to be clever and use your different modes to maximize the advantages of each. try to fight in airmech mode and your turn into Skeet very quickly.