1. (BUG) ALPHABET ISSUESIn the table of contents, the last four mercenary companies are listed as follows:
- Waco's Rangers
- 12th Vegan Rangers
- Wylie's Coyotes
- Wolf's Dragoons
The correct order should be:
- 12th Vegan Rangers
- Waco's Rangers
- Wolf's Dragoons
- Wylie's Coyotes
2. (OPINION) ARTWORK COMPLAINTSp. 55: Not sure if "racist," "sexist," or just "tacky."
p. 75: Pale skin, leather straps, bare midriff, and tights. Is Natasha Kerensky a Twilight (TM) vampire?
I like that there are a lot of named female characters in this book, but I
really feel like BT should be putting its best foot forward art-wise when it comes to female representation. Natasha Kerensky is the most iconic MechWarrior the distaff set gets to look up to, what with being featured in the quick-start's fiction and all. So I
strongly suggest getting the perspective of a BattleTech fan who identifies as female, on what
her idea of a badass looks like. Or, failing that, the perspective of a female sci-fi fan.
4. (CONCERN) COPYRIGHT STUFFAmong the paint schemes in the miniatures gallery are ones for the "Fighting Urukhai" and "Greenburg's Godzillas." I refer you to the scene in one of the Austin Powers films (don't ask me which one, I haven't watched them) where one character exclaims "It's Godzilla!" and another says "No, it is not, due to international copyright law!"
5. (COMPLAINT) WASTE OF DEAD TREESThere are
eight pages of advertisements in the back. Isn't that a little ... excessive?
6. (COMPLAINT) ALPHA STRIKE COMPANION REQUIREDThe sheer number of "ASC" references throughout the book, along with basic things like pilot and command abilities only being found in the Companion,
de facto elevates it to the status of a required purchase for people who want to use Combat Manual: Mercenaries.
In order to preserve customer goodwill, Catalyst should indicate that the ASC is a
required purchase on the back of the book, using its logo in the same place and at the same size as Alpha Strike proper's. Catalyst should also stop selling the CM:M plus Alpha Strike PDF bundle, as this will leave people disappointed when they realize they should have sprung for the bundle that includes the Alpha Strike Companion and now have to forego the discount.
I'm
personally in the situation of having bought Alpha Strike but not the Companion, and thus being left out of not only this, but also the last RPGNow bundle they did of AS + ASC. (As well as AToW plus AToWC.) So this is really something that irks me.
7. (CONCERN) "TECHNICAL READOUT" REFERENCE UNCLEARIn all of BattleTech up to this date, a "Technical Readout" is a book supplement that gives original BattleTech stats for an era or faction's selection of units. Saying that this book includes "a mini Technical Readout" could create the impression that original BattleTech players will find new stats relevant to their system of choice in this book.
Suggested alternatives: "an
Alpha Strike Technical Readout," "a unit list".
8. (CONCERN) "CREATE YOUR OWN" REFERENCE MISLEADINGThe back cover also says you can create your own mercenary command. The only support this book has for doing so is a paragraph on page 79:
A Force may also be fielded from an unlisted Mercenary Combat Command. Doing so not provide access to non-mercenary Availability Lists or Unique Characters, and any Special Command Abilities must be rolled randomly (see p. 85).
That kind of feels like a rip-off.
Suggested resolution: Remove the back cover text which lists this as a feature, or add some kind of system for creating more balanced and personalized MCCs.
9. (CONCERN) JARGON-Y RULESThe chapter on Force Building introduces terms like "company," "lance," and "regiment" in its rules text,
before explaining what all of those mean. It forces players to wade through a section on "Unit Organizations" before reading the relevant part which explains how to "Build a Company," and asks newbies and casual players to worry about what their in-universe subcommand's composition is like before telling them how to make their own force derived from it.
(There is a sidebar called "What if I just want to start playing?", but it is on page 83, when it
should be right at the start of the Force Building section.)
Suggested resolution: Put the "just ... start playing" sidebar at or near the start of the Force Building chapter, and explain the process of building your own force more clearly. Here are some suggestions:
- Lead with the "Regimental Table of Organization," with graphics modified to make it clear that there are typically four units in a lance (the three dots above each one make that unclear).
- Go straight into "Build a Company." Cut out the first two paragraphs, which explain extraneous stuff and caveats. Just tell people to take these lances in this combination. Don't use "Formation" as a synonym for "company;" either assume that players will be building a company by default, or use "Formation" as the default and offer more types of Formations than companies.
- Treat Special Command Abilities as an extra. Tell players that they can either roll on the table, or limit their company to the units available to the Command and Sub-Command they want their company to be a part of.
So basically, it explains things out-of-order and it was really confusing to me on the first read-through. I'm also still disappointed that I have to buy a separate book in order to actually
use this one, especially this part of CM:M, and that I've been left out of the past couple of bundles which included it.