How to play Battletech in 30 minutes

welcome to battletech the game of armored mech combat in the 31st century this guide will help explain battle tech's lore history and how to play your first game [Music] battletech is a tabletop miniatures war game originally produced by fafsa corporation back in 1984. players command mighty walking tanks known as battlemechs these machines were slow lumbering industrial giants a direct contrast to japanese mecca of the time just like its contemporaries the battle tech universe garnered a massive fan base this success spawned the mechwarrior series of video games tons of fiction and even an animated tv show is this some kind of joke you dare to refuse my pajal refuse your what battletech ran into some trouble in 1996 with what became known as the unseen some of the line's most iconic artwork had been borrowed from the anime macross starting a long-running legal battle fafsa decided to get out while they were ahead selling battle tech in 2001 the ip eventually found its way to catalyst game labs who managed to finally resolve the unseen dilemma in 2015. their work has created a resurgence of interest in the game their recent clan invasion kickstarter campaign did exceedingly well with lots more to come in the future the battle tech universe has a plethora of amazing lore far too much to explain here the easiest way to summarize the lore is by era and what rules are common to that era not long after mankind spread throughout the inner sphere the age of war began constant conflict and war crimes were only tempered by the aries convention which had the unfortunate effect of codifying war the heroes of these conflicts were mech warriors noble soldiers exemplified in the literal nights of their time in 2571 ian cameron created the star league unifying the inner sphere years of relative peace prosperity and technological advancement followed the star league was betrayed two centuries later in the america civil war a shell of its former self the star league defense force was led into a self-imposed exile by alexander korenski the rest of the great nation was soon devoured by the great houses a series of succession wars followed each was incredibly devastating for little gain technology was slowly being lost to time until the helm memory core was discovered in 3028 starting a renaissance much of the star league's achievements were reintroduced as well as the first new designs in centuries then a new threat emerged the clans a mysterious group from beyond the periphery with brand new battlemechs these clans struck deep into the inner sphere only after being defeated at the battle of took yet did they stop it would take the recreation of the star league to truly defeat them in 30 60. with their invasion halted the clans began to turn on each other their infighting became the refusal war not long after the federated commonwealth was divided into civil war with factories once again rapidly producing new technology the conflict became a massive endeavor engulfing all the inner sphere as that war ended so did the reborn star league infuriated the extremist techno religious group the word of blake began their jihad a war with unimaginable atrocities fled up across the galaxy new equipment mixing clan and intersphere tech pushed the bloodshed beyond that of even the civil war it took devlin stone's coalition in 3081 to restore peace the beginnings of which became the republic of the sphere after 50 years of peace came grey monday the faster than light communications network was sabotaged everyone began pointing fingers at each other blaming their old enemies for the outage dozens of micro factions emerged shifting the galactic balance dramatically the republic of the sphere went into a lockdown as we now wait to find out who broke the internet to get started playing battle tech there are four main products to consider the battletech beginner box comes with an introductory version of the rules and just enough to get you started the a game of armored combat box is the closest thing to a battlefield core set currently out right now there's everything you need to play a succession war era battle the kickstarter funded clan invasion box set acts as an expansion to the game of armored combat box introduces tons of new content but notably does not come with the core rules if you like having all your rules in one place or just want to expand your games try picking up the battlemech manual it covers everything regarding mech combat all in one book i'll be using parts from all these boxes in my examples the first step in a game of battle tech is discussing what kind of battle you would like to play with your opponent what scenario objectives optional rules and so on will you play with you can customize your game exactly to your liking for our example game we'll be playing a simple skirmish set during the clan invasion we will only be using battlemechs from that era or before and banning any custom mechs to be thematic i'll be using an inner sphere force while my opponent will be fielding a clan force to keep things balanced we will be using the official battle value system it uses math to determine how effective a max should be assigning it a points value as long as our two forces are roughly the same total we should have a balanced fight this is more of a guideline than a rule as units can vary in cost dramatically once we have decided on what rules we want to use we will need to ready our forces to do so i'd recommend looking through the master unit list i've decided my force will consist of a black knight 6b a wolverine6r commando 2d and a griffin 1n most inner sphere pilots have a stat line of 4 gunnery and 5 piloting i've upgraded my wolverine in black knight to veterans which have 3 4 stat lines i'll need to check the matrix on the master unit list to see what each unit's new battle value is my opponent has picked an ice ferret b and a timberwolf prime for his force the clans have better pilots and equipment but still have to pay for it both of his units are three-fourths considered average for clan mech warriors this brings our total battle value to around 5 500 appropriate for the invasion era we will need record sheets for each unit we will be fielding along with a game piece to represent them on the battlefield battletech is miniatures agnostic meaning anything can count as a mac official mini 3d print cardboard standee third-party figure or whatever else is totally fine record sheets can be photocopied off the booklet that comes with your box set printed off the internet or if you're like me laminated to be reused with wet erase markers make sure to write down your pilot's stats and name to form your battlefield lay out two official map sheets connecting along the long edge finally make sure each player has a handful of six-sided dice to roll battletech is turn-based with each turn taking six phases the first of which is called the initiative phase representing which side has better battle awareness in the moment both players should roll a pair of dice also known as 2d6 adding the results together the player with the highest result has one initiative and the player with the lowest result has lost initiative unlike in other games later phases usually have the player who lost initiative act first this is because most actions are resolved simultaneously preventing any actions from affecting another until the phase is complete the player taking actions later therefore ends up with more information and can make better decisions than their opponent [Music] in the movement phase players alternate moving mechs across the battlefield starting with the player that lost initiative each player selects a mech to activate what movement type you'll be using then expands movement points to advance across the battlefield how a unit moves affects its accuracy and ability to evade incoming fire we can use movement dice to keep track of how each unit moved and what modifiers it acquired for later phases [Music] the first turn of the game will see each side deploy their miniatures onto the battlefield there are two main ways to do this number one alternate placing units in the first full hex along your home board edge or number two have each unit move on to the battlefield counting their movement from the first full hex they enter on their home edge you can deploy however you like as there are no official rules other than that both players agree since my opponent lost the initiative he will move a unit first in this case his timberwolf he elects the walk checking the walking value on the top left of his record sheet he has five movement points to work with when walking a mec can spend one movement point to move one hex forward one hex backward or to rotate by one hex face but cannot move diagonally he will move one hex forward rotate once move forward again rotate and move forward once more to help remember how his mech moved we will place a white movement die next to it the number facing up should match the mech's target modifier as listed on the attack modifiers table in this case one it's now my activation so i will elect to move my commando i'll choose to run as all of my weapons have a really short range running is always one and a half times your walking speed in this case nine movement points running mechs can move forward and rotate just like walking mix but cannot move backwards i want to move here but along the way there is terrain that will slow me down light woods cost an additional movement point to enter while heavy woods costs two movement points to enter there is a hill on the way too which is marked as level two and level three a mech can go up or down two levels per hex for an additional movement point per level moving up this forested hill will cost four movement points while moving into this hex will cost two having finished my move i'll place a black die indicating that my commando ran five hexes for a plus two modifier normally play would alternate back to my opponent but since i have more units than he does i'll need to reference the cleverly named unequal number of mechs table outnumbering my opponent two to one i will have to move a second mech this activation this will be the same case in the next two phases as well that said i like to move my griffin some mechs are equipped with jump jets powerful thrusters that allow them to fly across the battlefield jumping mechs break a lot of the previous rules for movement a jumping mech can move a number of hexes equal to its jumping value in any direction landing with any facing this jump ignores any terrain it crosses over a mech may move up a number of levels matching its maximum jumping value moving up 5 levels would therefore require a jumping value of 5. a jumping mech may move down as many levels as it wants moving my griffin like so will only cost four movement points i'll place a red movement dime next to the griffin with the one facing up to end his move play then cycles back and forth until we have moved all of our units ending the movement phase the weapon's attack phase is when the shooting starts think of it as three sub phases first players declare all of their units attacks they resolve those attacks then the results of those attacks are applied that last step means that no attack during the phase can affect any other attack that phase to help showcase this better our example game is progressive i lost the initiative and will be going first this time my commando unfortunately suffered a catastrophic ammo explosion and has been removed from the game on my turn i need to pick both a mech to attack with and a mech to shoot at known as the attacker and target now you can't shoot at what you can't see so we'll need to determine the line of sight to our target to do so simply draw a straight line between the center of the two mechs if there is no terrain in the way then both mechs can see each other if there is terrain in the way things get a bit more complicated if there is three movement points of woods along this line line of sight is blocked by the trees a building or hill two levels or higher between the mechs also blocks on a site however less than three points of woods one level of hills or other mechs do not block line of sight if the mechs are at different heights then terrain only intervenes if it is higher than both mechs or directly adjacent to one of them finally if line of sight is directly along the edge of two hexes then the target gets to decide which side they are on [Music] now that i know what my targets are i will pick my wolverine to shoot first every weapon is mounted in a spot with a specific arc and thus can only shoot at a target within that arc for most weapons that will be the front arc which follows along the three forward facing hexes arm mounted weapons can reach one hex further into the relevant side arc weapons with an r in brackets are rear-mounted and fired directly behind a mech a mech can also declare a torso twist shifting its normal firing arcs by one hex to either side [Music] i'll start off targeting the ice spirit with my ac5 as all my other weapons are out of range my opponent will have the ice ferret fire its er large laser at the wolverine its srm 4 and 6 will go into the black knight next i'll have my griffin fire his lrm10 at the timberwolves in return he will unload with the timberwolf launching the lrm20s of the wolverine both er large lasers into the griffin and everything else at the black knight finally the black knight will fire his ppc a large pulse laser and two medium lasers at the timberwolve i will also have the medium laser on his left arm take a shot at the ice ferrite now with all of our attacks declared we can work on resolving them to resolve an attack we need to know how difficult the shot is which is represented by a target number gator is a handy mnemonic for determining our target number g represents our pilot's gunnery skill a stands for attacker modifier or how the mech moved earlier t is our target's modifier based on how far they moved o represents other miscellaneous effects like terrain damage components heat or firing at multiple targets and r is our range which usually varies between weapons hence why it comes last let's use gator to find a target number for the wolverine to start out our gunnery stat is three we gain plus one from walking and a plus two from the ice spirits evasion since we are on a level two hill the woods don't matter 14 x's away is long range so i'll need to add a plus four for a total of ten a challenging shot i roll and a miss now that i've attacked i need to mark off a shot from one of my ammo bins then it's my opponent's turn he wants to resolve the timberwolf next and starts the onslaught at his primary target the black knight his gator is gunnery three plus two from running and plus one from the target's movement as we are directly on a hex line and i am being targeted i have elected to have the light woods interfere for a plus one the er medium lasers are at short range and can fire without penalty his target number is therefore seven the machine guns are at medium range a plus two modifier so they need a nine pulse lasers are highly accurate naturally incurring a -2 modifier so the medium pulse laser only needs a 5 to hit my opponent can resolve these attacks in any order he wants he starts with the er medium lasers and lands one shot we need to know where that shot lands so he rolls again the result is compared to the hit location table in this case striking my left torso that shot does seven damage so i'll mark off seven armor pips from that location the medium pulse laser is next and hits my left arm for another 7 damage i mark off my remaining armor pips but i still have 2 damage to take that remaining damage spills over into my internal structure whenever an attack damages internal structure there is a chance of a critical hit destroying a system my opponent rules once more to determine if he landed any critical hits and he gets two criticals now he rolls a single die twice for each crit on my black knight's critical hit chart a two and a five takes out my medium laser a six and a three it's endosteal which is the same as a roll again result a one and a three destroys my lower arm actuator ah that stings the machine guns luckily miss my opponent isn't done yet the er large lasers are targeting our griffin next as the timberwol's secondary target all shots gain a plus one to hit our gator calculation is therefore three plus two plus two plus one forming a secondary target and plus one from cover and then another plus two for medium range for a total of ten luckily both shots miss the timberwolves last set of weapons is a pair of lrm 20s gunning for the wolverine he needs an 11 and incredibly he lands one lrms are cluster weapons which spread their damage across the target my opponent rolls on the cluster hits table comparing the result to the size of the launcher in this case 12 out of the 20 missiles have hit each doing one damage lrms bundle their missiles into groups of five when determining hit location placing any remainder into their own group the first group hits my right leg for five damage the second hits my right torso for five in the last volley it's my center torso for two after subtracting ammo my opponent passes the turn to me i choose the black knight next gator for our attacks against the timberwolf are you guessed it seven however the ppc has a minimum range of three for each hex at or below our minimum range we add plus one to the target number in this case that would be plus two increasing our target number to nine during target declaration i had the black knight torso twist to the left doing so brought the ice ferret within my side arc still only weapons mounted on my left arm may be fired at it as a secondary target in our side arc our multi-target modifier is increased to plus two even though our left arm medium laser was destroyed this phase it can still be shot at full capacity as damage effects are not resolved until the end of the phase we then resolve damage as normal the ice ferret is next and calculates gator as before his large laser misses but the srm 4 and 6 both hit the black knight srms use the cluster table much like lrms but each missile does 2 damage to a separate hit location the isferit's srms are in the black knight's rear arc which do damage to the much weaker back armor the griffin is the last mech to activate while the griffin doesn't have line of sight on the isolate it could still attack it lrms have the option of firing indirectly as long as another mech is willing to spot for them this splits the gator calculation between the spotter and the attacker i decided not to do so this turn to help manage the griffin's heat once all attacks have been resolved the effects of those attacks come into play these can range from mild inconveniences to the outright destruction of a mech if a mech has lost all internal structure in one section that section is then destroyed along with any equipment in it extra damage to that section is applied to the next location inwards losing a head or a center torso destroys the mech removing it from the game critical hits are another type of damage each with a unique effect crits to equipment and weapons disables them crits to actuators or amex gyro causes a movement and physical attack penalty crits to an engine make the mech run hotter with the third hit destroying the mech crits the ammunition bins cause a lethal explosion the mech takes damage to its structure as if it was hit by all the ammo in that bin this is almost always lethal even with a small amount of ammo some of the effects of damage may call for a piloting skill roll or psr for short psrs are usually made to avoid falling over or damaging the mech warrior to make a psr add the mechwarrior's piloting skill to all appropriate modifiers to get a target number then roll against it similar to how gator works psrs resulting from attacks are resolved at the end of the phase most other psrs happen immediately if a mech fails it usually falls over and then we round hard taking damage to its new prone facing the physical attack phase is for resolving glorious melee combat it works in a similar way to the weapons phase with each player declaring resolving and applying the results of their attacks calculating a target number uses the far less appealing monomic potato adding our piloting skill attacker movement target movement attack type and any other modifiers gives us our target number there are seven different types of physical attacks five melee attacks and two movement based attacks the first attack we'll look at is club attacks to make a club attack a mech needs a club most often a tree or another mech's limb the attacker will need to have undamaged hand and shoulder actuators and can't fire any arm mounted weapons the target will also need to be in the attacker's front arc a successful attack does one damage for every five tons the attacking mech weighs let's resolve a club attack with the wolverine a pilot scale of four plus two from running plus two from our target minus one from our attack type and plus one from the light woods gives us a total of nine bam we've hit the wolverine weighs 55 tons which means we do 11 damage or one fifth of its total weight there are all sorts of melee weapons for mechs the most common being the hatchet a mech equipped with a melee weapon can attack with the same limitations as clubbing unlike clubs most melee weapons are one-handed letting the wielder make attacks in their front or side arc a hatchet has a -1 modifier for its attacks and does one damage per 5 tons other melee weapons have different attack and damage values so check what the weapon is listed as on your record sheet punch attacks can be made with each arm in their respective arcs just like before the attacking mech needs an undamaged shoulder and can't fire any arm weapons damage to other arm actuators add another to hit modifier and reduce punch damage by half however each arm may make an attack roll individually as one action punches do one damage for every 10 tons the attacker weighs and use the punch hit location table kick attacks can be made against a target in a mech's forward arc as long as the attacker's hips are undamaged leg actuator damage impairs the mech just like a punch would kicks do 1 damage for every 5 tons the attacker weighs and use the kick hit location table notably a successful kick forces a piling skill roll on the target potentially causing a fall at the end of the phase a missed kick does the same to the attacker push attacks are the fifth normal physical attack push attacks don't actually do damage instead they push a mech one hex directly away from the attacker this is very useful for throwing another mech off of a cliff or out of cover if a mech has a target in the hex directly in front of them both arms and hasn't shot any arm mounted weapons they can make a push if successful the target is immediately displaced one hex away and will need to take a piling skill roll to avoid falling the two movement-based attacks are declared in the movement phase when a mech is selected to move it must pick a target that has already finished its move the attacker then moves as if it were entering the target's hex stopping one hex shy until the attack is resolved in the following physical attack phase the attacking mech counts as being in that adjacent hex this means that their movement isn't complete until the attack is the attacker also can't fire any weapons that turn regardless of where they are mounted a charge attack has a mech slam into another a mech must spend enough walking or running movement points to enter the target's hex this does not have to be a straight line if either mech falls during the weapon attack phase the charge automatically misses charges use a comparative attack modifier instead of a set number this is simply the attacker's piloting skill minus the targets as both mechs collide they both end up taking damage divide the attacker's weight by 10 then multiply it by the number of hexes it moved the target takes that much damage rounding up has five point groups just like lrms the attacker takes one tenth of the target's weight as damage also as 5 point groups after damage is dealt the attacker enters the target's hex displacing them just like a push if the attack missed the attacking mech moves to hex left or right of their target finally both mechs will need to take a piloting skill roll at the end of the phase the last physical attack is the death room above this move sees a jump capable mech crushing their target in a single bound a death from above works like a charge but with jumping movement instead make sure to account for the height of the target mech when declaring a death from above on a success the target takes damage equal to one tenth of the attacker's weight multiplied by three and uses the punch location table the attacker takes a one-fifth of its weight in damage using the kick location table both divide the damage into five-point groupings the attacker then lands in the target's hex displacing the target on a success on a miss the target moves into any adjacent hex before the attacker lands after a successful attack both mechs will need to take a piling skill roll after an unsuccessful one the attacker automatically falls the combat prowess of a battle mech comes at a great cost heat in the heat phase we need to calculate how hot or cold our mechs are and test if something goes awry first we need to add up all the heat a mech generated this turn walking generates one heat running generates two and jumping generates one heat per hex moved to a minimum of three weapons fired this turn generate the amount of heat listed on the record sheet engine damage and some other effects also generate heat next check how much heat the mech can dissipate single heat sinks subtract one heat each double heat sinks subtract twice as much heat subtract the amount dissipated from the generated heat and the difference shifts the max heat scale up or down if the heat scale rises the mech will begin to suffer under pressure there are four different effects of heat buildup attack modifiers movement modifiers shut down and ammo explosions until the next heat phase apply the highest attack modifier on the heat scale to all weapon attacks this does not affect physical attacks apply the highest movement modifier to that mech's walking speed the mexi running speed is also recalculated to one and a half times the new number if the heat scale is at or above a shutdown chance the pilot must check to see if they can override the automated shot down roll against the highest modifier on a success nothing happens but on failure the mech performs an emergency shutdown causing a piloting skill roll a shutdown mech is immobile and unable to do anything until it restarts a restart attempt can be made during the next heat phase after dissipating heat there's also a chance of unspent ammo exploding if a mech gets too hot if a mech doesn't have any ammunition then ignore this effect if it does then roll against the highest modifier on the heat scale if you fail this find the most destructive bin of ammo usually the fullest and suffer an ammo explosion as if that ammo bin had taken a critical hit the end phase is for resolving a variety of minor effects torso twists reset consciousness roles are made jams are cleared and so on afterwards their turn is over and a new one begins from the top keep playing turns until the objective has been scored a force is destroyed or player withdraws and that should be everything you need to know to get started playing the classic game of battle tech while i didn't cover everything in the standard rule set the rest should be fairly easy to pick up as you play battletech is also very open to house rules as well here are some of my suggested ones for you to try out if you want more battle tech check out some of these wonderful works by the community but until next time good hunting [Music] mechwarrior [Music] you

Channel: Snalespune

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Keywords: Battletech, How to play classic battletech, learn to play battletech, Battletech rules, Classic Battletech, battle tech, learn battletech, How to play battletech tabletop, getting started battletech, getting started with battletech

Id: fv8WQlf2ML4

Length: 30min 7sec (1807 seconds)

Published: Mon May 03 2021