Back From the Dead, Dead On Arrival — A Review Of Force Manual: Davion/KuritaFluff: A
Crunch: D+
Priority: Crunch
Overall Grade: C-It's a title I'd hoped I wouldn't have to write. I was a big fan of the
Combat Manuals, even if their release was notably aborted. So, come
April 2022, I was ecstatic to see the understated announcement that the
Combat Manuals were being rebooted, and in the process two of my biggest issues were being addressed: not only would we see the debut of
Force Manual: Davion, giving us all the tools to run real War of 3039 matches using just the first wave of
Force Manuals (granted, we're missing the Lyran front, but hey—compromises must be made, sometimes), but it would also support Classic BattleTech, massively broadening its usefulness.
I saw this as an absolute win. The books, whose main issues were a limited scope combined with an aborted launch, were now shaping up to be a fantastic option for experienced players, a great standard for event and tournament organizers, and, perhaps most of all, a fantastic pseudo-codex for new players taking their first dive into one of BattleTech's major factions. Hell, even before launch, I was so enamored by the potential for the reboot that I'd already sketched out drafts for a War of 3039 tournament and multiple Shrapnel game articles that could offer modest expansions on the Force Manuals' offerings.
But What Was a Combat Manual?For those unfamiliar with the
Combat Manuals don't expect the same level of in-depth lore as you would from a
Field Manual or
Handbook. They were game aids first, and the
Force Manuals are no different. Of course, they still served as a streamlined primer on each faction for new players, but the ultimate goal was for players to use them and the information on the various combat commands within to create organized, lore-friendly forces (with some benefits for accepting the limitations imposed). They were limited to just Alpha Strike, and, of course, they weren't perfect, but they were an underrated gem that had the misfortune of coming out during a down period in BattleTech's activity, and for a system that hadn't yet gained its current popularity. In the end, for various reasons, the run was cancelled after just two entries:
Combat Manual: Kurita and
Combat Manual: Mercenaries.
The Long WaitAs it's not really an issue to people reading this review after the books have already released, I'll keep this brief, but I do want to highlight it as it speaks to a recurring issue with Catalyst—and one that exacerbates the issues I have with the
Force Manuals.
The wait.
Remember how the announcement for these was in April 2022? And the announcement states they were to start releasing in late 2022? Both
Force Manual: Davion and
Force Manual: Kurita released in October 2024. To be frank, and to skip ahead a bit, while there are things to like about the
Force Manuals, they do
not feel like two and a half years of work. While, yes, much of that time was also taken up by work on the Mercenaries Kickstarter, it's an excessive amount of time for one moderately-sized new book working off of an existing template, and another book that just needs its contents updated and a few features added or removed.
Catalyst is a small company, and I would rather its core employees be dedicated members who understand the world, the game, and the community, rather than hiring like mad and leaving big decisions about BattleTech to people who can't provide such stable stewardship. Ask any
Brush Wars fan, though, and they'll tell you that the lack of personnel means CGL's propensity for New Toy Syndrome can and does regularly hit smaller projects
hard. It's an issue currently affecting several lines of supplements, and I hope after all the Kickstarter mess dies down, Catalyst opts to sit down and put in the time to catch up on products that have been gathering dust for years before they dive into another big box set or massive-scale book project.
The FluffSo, enough waffling on about the past—the books are out, how are they for those looking into BattleTech's story and aesthetic?
Force Manuals as Lore PrimersAside from the odd typo, formatting error, or layout issue, the
Force Manuals, like their predecessors, do a good job of giving you the Cliff Notes version of "Who are they?" and "Why should I care?" For beginners, this is great. While of course, dedicated fans love hearing about the various subcultures, industries, and finer politics of their favorite faction, beginners can easily skim
Force Manuals and get all the most important parts of each faction's backstory, culture, military, and other elements essential to the faction's "vibe" without getting bogged down. From the streamlined walls of lore at the front of the book, to the brief summaries of each combat command, to the various handy inserts on the margins covering interesting, but usually ancillary or non-essential information, the books are simply fantastic primers that
players can easily digest, and build upon if and when they decide to devote more time to becoming equally-invested
readers.
But again, it must be said that the information
is highly streamlined. You won't get nearly as much lore as you would from one of the old House Books, a
Field Manual, or a
Handbook. Veteran lore experts who aren't too interested in having a handy guide to building fluffy forces on tabletop aren't likely to find anything new in the
Force Manuals' pages. Again, that's not what the
Force Manuals are trying to accomplish—so fair warning to those who are mainly in it for the nitty-gritty lore details!
Beyond that, though, they are good for a skim. The slimmed-down lore passages are fast, easy reads that are nice to reference if you want a short brief of a command that's just shown up in a novel or sourcebook, and there's just enough substance that a command you've never looked over before may just hook you.
And They Are PrettyAnother big plus is the art. While far from an artbook, and indeed even a normal sourcebook, the art present in the
Force Manuals is nice. Special mention goes to the updated art for several uniforms, which is not only an excellent successor to a lot of very old,
very 80s art, but a nice break from Catalyst's recent trend of excessive 'Mech art. And of course,
Force Manual: Kurita being an older book given a face lift means it has a mix of mid-'10s- and '20s-style BattleTech art—a fine fusion for me, as someone who really enjoys a lot of the art that came out in the handful of years before BattleTech's renaissance.
Again, though, it's not quite the
focus of the
Force Manuals. If you enjoy BattleTech art, there will be plenty to like, but if you're looking for a book filled to the brim with pieces that aren't unit insignias, there are other books available that will serve you better.
The CrunchAnd unfortunately, here's where the complaints begin—sadly enough, as we reach the part that the
Force Manuals were always meant to focus on.
Out With the FP, In With the RarityThose who remember the original
Combat Manuals may remember that the salvage, duplicate, and special unit picks were all based around the "Faction Point" (FP) system. Put simply, every unit in a company contributed 1 FP to a company—thus, a full company of 12 'Mechs had 12 FP to spend. FP expenditures ranged from marginal expenses like having duplicates of the same 'Mech variant, to highly expensive options like Clan salvage. Some of these costs could also vary by combat command—some highly-decorated commands could access better equipment for less FP, while others got discounts on salvage from regularly-fought enemy factions—giving these commands a nice added bit of flavor.
It was a system that seemed intimidating to many people. Indeed, even I thought it would be cumbersome at first. That being said, after sitting down with it for a few minutes one day, I actually found it shockingly intuitive. Still, it was an unpopular system with many of those who knew it, and I'll grant that it could have had a bit more refinement. When talking with folks working on the project early on, I was informed that, from the very beginning, one of the first goals was to replace the FP system with something more approachable, less restrictive, and that requires less math. Of course, I wasn't told any more than that, so I crossed my fingers and held my judgement to see the result.
The result is... mixed. The rarity system has all the ingredients at its core to be a great replacement, but some baffling removals hold it back severely. One thing I do like is that rather than having a Common availability list, and then Faction and Faction Special lists to distinguish between the common house 'Mechs and the flashy new stuff, the
Force Manuals assign each unit a rating of Iconic (for those 'Mechs that the faction
can and will spam until the cows come home), Common (for the units that aren't hard to find, but aren't
everywhere in the faction's ranks), Uncommon (for those units that can actually be hard to find, but aren't borderline impossible), and Rare (for those exceedingly rare picks). I actually
really like this added granularity, especially when combined with the Equipment Rating each command now receives that dictates how quickly its tech gets upgraded over the course of the Clan Invasion.
There were, however, some balls dropped in its implementation, I feel. For one, it doesn't
really simplify the math all that much. Instead of having a clean, bespoke point value for buying unusual units and force configurations based on your overall force size, you now have several hard limits and then a bunch of percentages based on force size. It's really not any less complex to calculate, at the end of the day, and I fear the percentage-based limits might not fit well when
Force Manuals debut for forces that may not often divide evenly into quarters and thirds, such as ComStar and the Clans.
Additionally, there really isn't much that affects this system. Common Enemy and Ally attributes, as well as force building rules that grant certain commands access to Special lists, are all gone, with almost no replacement. Some commands are still able to pull units from other factions' lists, but unlike the FP system's implementation of Common Enemy there don't seem to be any limits or added costs for doing so. Likewise, since Equipment Rating doesn't apply during the Succession Wars, units like the Second Arkab Legion that could pay hefty sums to access a Special list to reflect an unusually large quantity of surviving Star League equipment or a high-priority for War of 3039 innovations are often SOL. Only in
Force Manual: Kurita and only for 'Mechs new to the War of 3039 is any restriction implemented, and said implementation feels a bit wonky to me. In all other cases, any backwater command can be armed just as well as the best of the best during the Succession Wars.
This also makes salvage nothing more than a fluff piece with some static, pre-defined salvage picks that, frankly, may or may not make much sense due to some odd inclusions and glaring omissions. The
Combat Manuals used Common Enemies and Common Allies to allow factions and combat commands to pay for salvage from appropriate sources, sometimes with discounts for border commands or special exceptions for units on the border of a particular Clan invasion corridor. I do like including some canned salvage picks in each book, as the
Combat Manuals did have the issue of using this system to encourage a "collect them all" approach that...
definitely didn't work, considering the series only ever got one book for any actual state. The total lack of any rules for salvage or arms trade picks does make the books feel far less scalable, however, and seriously hurts lists without many—or
any—baked-in salvage picks.
Both of these issues could have been very simple to fix, to my mind. Simply providing force building rules that, say, allow a command to allot additional Rare and/or Uncommon units could give the highest-priority and most exotic commands an edge still reflected in their fluff more often than not. Salvage could be a simple matter of increasing a unit's rarity by a set number of steps—say, +0 (to a minimum of Common) for Common Allies, +1 for Inner Sphere Common Enemies, and +2 for Clan Common Enemies; thus, an Iconic or Common 'Mech obtained from a Common Ally would be Common either way, a Common 'Mech from an IS Common Enemy would become Uncommon, and a Common 'Mech from a Clan Common Enemy would become Rare.
There are also issues with duplicates. While the FP system's default allowance of duplicate 'Mechs was perhaps a
bit too generous (certainly for the Succession Wars), it more importantly only penalized duplicate
'Mechs. This isn't so with the rarity system—every unit is put under the same microscope, subject to the exact same duplicate rules, and all contribute equally to the same limits. This is a big problem when you start bringing in vehicles, and fighters. Rare fighters are a bit of a waste since fighters are almost always deployed in pairs, and sometimes there's not a variant of the same chassis at a lower rarity available. Vehicles are at least less expected to be quite so uniform, but the limit of two of the same Uncommon unit still hurts when you're trying to fit them into larger forces. Thankfully, infantry don't have rarities, meaning you can't be bottlenecked by Uncommon or Rare infantry being unable to form CI companies or BA platoons/lances, but that also creates the new issue that cutting-edge battle armor has no limitation other than Equipment Rating; this will likely become an issue for Clan availability lists in the future when suits like the Gnome and Salamander are introduced.
All in all, I like some of the core ideas in the rarity system, but overall it was very poorly implemented, I think. Having a more granular definition of just
how special each unit is and how well each combat command is able to keep with the times are welcome additions, but in practice their design makes them more restrictive and less evocative, all without simplifying the process of building a force all that much.
And About Those Force Lists...Maybe I'm the odd one out here, but despite how massive the lists were, I much prefer the
Combat Manuals' availability list formatting to the
Force Manuals'. Sure, it's a lot all at once, and they take up several pages, but the older availability lists also provided all the units in one place, with multiple sorting schemes making it a breeze to find the units you want. By contrast, cramming units in haphazardly wherever they'll technically fit under premade lances feels incredibly disorganized, and I often have to search page after page through lists sorted with no discernable rhyme or reason to find the rarity of a 'Mech I
know should be available. Even worse, variants, even those from the same era, are often printed pages apart, leading to a lot of flipping back and forth when deciding whether a more cutting-edge or obsolete variant would be a better fit.
Meanwhile, in the
Combat Manuals, I could very quickly find any of my own staple 'Mechs, or a 'Mech I wanted to experiment with, very easily just by checking the Availability List/Alphabetical-sorted table, then fill out needed roles and fit things into the remaining PV with the Role/PV-sorted table. No flipping back-and-forth trying to find where the hell my beloved Griffin and its variants are supposed to be, just go to the Gs in the Common list, and maybe check the same place Faction/Faction Special lists to see if the faction in question has any unique variants.
The system doesn't seem to be much better for those beginners who are just getting into the game either. Most of the pre-made lances and their helpfully-listed alternates can't be formed with any one plastic 'Mech box currently in circulation, and many require 3+ boxes or a lucky pull or two from a salvage box to potentially complete even just mixing and matching alternate units. While, yes, you
can technically proxy anything in BattleTech, many players will be using this for Alpha Strike, where model size and shape matter a bit more; more than that, I've found many players want to play with their models as the appropriate unit—either out of an urge to have everything match nicely and neatly, or, more often, because they're still learning which models are which and adding in too many proxies may quickly confuse things. If you're reading this, it's probably trivial for you to write down that your
Rifleman is actually a
Hatchetman and not get it mixed up with your
Blackjack standing in for a
Griffin, but newer players often have trouble keeping track of which one's which even with pictures on their record sheets or cards. So, either they get to play with, in all likelihood, a
whole bunch of proxies until they can collect lots of assorted minis, or they can run into the same problem more experienced players do: flipping back and forth trying to find the right
Wasp variant in the chaotic sea of 'Mechs.
Some of the availabilities are a bit odd as well. As expected, non-'Mech availabilities are very noticeably slimmer than 'Mech availabilities, and almost all are simple vanilla, milk toast units. Want Mobile HQs for a cheeky initiative boost? Coolant Trucks to take your
Awesome hot tub on-the-go? Karnovs or Planetlifters to drop infantry? Nada.
In fact, as a big aerospace player, I have to especially point out some oddities in the aerospace availabilities. Despite having much ado about conventional fighters in the section on force building, neither
Force Manual appears to have any conventional fighters available. Just as bafflingly,
Force Manual: Davion's has absolutely no salvaged aerospace fighters available.
Force Manual: Kurita does, but it also lists the
Sabre as being Uncommon, which I find highly suspect considering that it's not only a design of Combine origin, but one of if not the most ubiquitous aerospace fighter in all the Inner Sphere and Periphery. For the ground-pounders in the room, imagine a
Locust LCT-1V being supposedly as rare in the Combine as a
Lancelot.
Other Rules, Other ProblemsTo start off with the good news,
Force Manual: Davion has
finally fixed a long-standing exploitable rule regarding how far you can stray from a combat command's listed composition and how much of that composition your force actually fills. Now, no longer can a light 'Mech regiment deploy 53 assault 'Mechs without issue, but suddenly has to care about weight the moment they field 54 'Mechs. Same for Green commands at just under half-strength filling their ranks with Legendary MechWarriors. Now you always need to care at least a bit, and at more than a third of a command's strength you have to care a lot. There's just one little problem...
They forgot to update Force Manual: Kurita
.So, going by RAW, right now, Kurita forces operating at less than half a regiment have a pretty insane amount of flexibility compared to Davion forces. There's
tons of problems and oversights, and that's a pretty big one right there.
The rules for supplemental mercenary commands are also absent, depriving players of the option to spice things up by throwing mercs into their house lists. My hope is that this is not a total removal, but that it's simply been put into
Force Manual: Mercenaries only and isn't duplicated in other
Force Manuals.
There are plenty of other issues as well—some units have multiple entries with conflicting rarities in availability lists as well, Piloting and Gunnery for all Unique Characters are all backwards, so on and so forth. The errata threads have been filling up quickly with countless errors both one-off and persistent. While jarring and inconvenient for fluff, but not immediately relevant to the game, the mountain of small and sometimes not-so-small errors in the crunch means I can hardly even call the
Force Manuals authoritative to their own force construction rules, let alone the game it's supposed to supplement.
The Final VerdictUnfortunately, the weakest link of the
Force Manuals is what they try and focus on most: the crunch. While there were some good ideas, I don't think many of the updates from the
Combat Manuals make for a good foundation for the
Force Manual line to grow on in the long term. And, unfortunately, due to the quality issues with several key parts of the books, I can't really recommend them in a vacuum either. It's clear that Catalyst's editors are stretched far too thin, otherwise there would have been far beyond enough time to catch, at the very least, the errors I found skimming the books over lunch as they came out.
I was, perhaps, the most excited for the Force Manuals in this community. I regularly pestered various CGL folks about the status of the books every few months whenever I could make it to a Q&A. Unfortunately, after this disappointing showing, I'll certainly be abstaining from the first printing of
Force Manual: Mercenaries, and may well drop the series altogether until I hear word that the quality has drastically improved. Unfortunately, the reboot we waited two and a half years for may need
yet another reboot.
Sad to say, save your money, or at least stick to the PDF version that will hopefully get updated with errata. There's not much point in buying a physical copy unless you
really need something light to skim through, wait for the errata and pick up the corrected second printing at earliest.