Hey everyone. Newly registered
I used to be a big fan of Battletech back in the 90s, around the time the Clan storyline. Played it, loved reading the lore, even read a few of the novels (though the earlier stuff (the Carlysle books, Wolves on the Border etc) were a lot better than the clan era novels I read.
Then I forgot all about it when I got out of board games. Fast forward a couple of decades. I play a lot of board games now, but had still forgotten all about BT. The new PC Battletech game sort of came out of nowhere on me, showed up on my gog.com newsletter. I bought it and loved it, and thought 'Damn, I *miss* this game' and set out to get the latest version. That ended up being more complicated than expected lol. Trying to figure out where things are now took some research. So far as I can tell:
Battletech is licensed by a group of die hard fans who keep it alive, but it basically consists of like five people in a shoebox in Seattle, so it's very much a small time thing. Organization, marketing, communication etc. is strictly small time stuff. Most material now is released on PDF but sometimes(?) in physical form. There seem to be two basic branches: straight Battletech (the total war book and others) and Alpha Strike, which is the quick/easy/simple way to play but also doubles as something like Battleforce for bigger engagements. All of these seem to be out of physical print. I *think* there is a boxed set coming out in the summer?
Story wise: After Tukkayid, there was a Fed-com civil war that broke up the big state into a bunch of smaller ones, the the WoB went all holy war on the IS and started a huge succession war level conflict, which in turn triggered a clan civil war which ... made a huge mess, from which our hero, Devin 'random leader guy' Somethingorother emerges, and creates something called a Republic of the Sphere from the ashes. Consensus seems to be that it should have been named 'Republic of the Ye Olde Next Major Plot Target to Get Smashed Because We Broke Everything Else'. Then every major character anyone liked dies and all the HPGs went down because ... reasons and we're back to another dark age of lostech and Uncle Bob's family heirloom Locust. Do I have that right?
So.... what do I need to get to replace all my boxed sets from back in the day. I have the Battlemech book along with INterstellar and Campaign ops books (got lucky on a deal). What else do I need? Not only to play, but to absorb all the lore I missed? ANd can you get it in print (not a fan of reading on my ipad)?
Thanks for the add, I look forward to talking (mech) shop with you all.