Well said. I've yet to play Alpha Strike. I'm way behind the times.
Alpha Strike runs a bit faster than the Classic Total Warfare ruleset.
It also handles damage more abstract, basically the rules of Battleforce 2 but scaled down in size to handle individual Mechs working in lances.
It does mesh well with Destiny given the conversion rules in their book.
Destiny is more of a dice light RPG compared to A Time of War, with one of their more unique mechanics being how people "sharing" the GM storytelling and passing the microphone to the next player; a tad different compared to the more traditional story telling methods I grew up with.
An example of a older way of playing RPGs would be something like:
The GM tells Mike, the player, that as he kicked down the door he encounters two armed guards taken by surprise. Mike readies his weapons and is told to roll for initiative.
With Destiny:
The microphone is handed to Suzy who says she kicks down the door and sees two guards, they were surprised by her actions. The GM decided to roll Perception, fails one but the other makes it, comments to her how one of the guards was probably on duty while the other was sleeping in his chair for a brief break (so it wasn't a complete surprise like Suzy says). They can now play out a combat phase or maybe Suzy continues the story with her trying to bluff or scare them, in which the GM rolls for the guards. After her scene is described, the microphone is passed to a player for their scene.
Now there are rules to adjust for a more "traditional" way of playing with Destiny, but that's kind of the gist. There's not a lot of detailed weapons for players in Destiny; Total Warfare has multiple SMGs for example, Destiny has the one. The game system is less about the fiddly parts of play and more into having the players play cinematically. Hope this comparison helps.
