Last game night, I offered to introduce everyone in our group to the coolness that is [old school] Battletech. I brought my old 1985 box set and my dog-eared 3025 Technical Readout (with the green Marauder on the cover) to the table, and the 4 of us present that night set about a two-on-two skirmish.

We randomly determined our mechs, and teamed up in an attempt to make the fight fair.

I ended up with a Wasp (a 20 ton machine – the smallest in the game), and teamed up with the player running the Marauder (75 tons). We were against a Rifleman (60 tons) and a Crusader (65 tons).

One other player in our group used to play Battletech regularly, and was well versed in the rules and tactics. One other had played some of the computer version, but the fourth player had no experience with the system.

Our skirmish lasted probably 20-25 turns, during which my side won initiative exactly 1 time. Plus we couldn’t roll worth crap on our attack dice. In the end, the Marauder was heavily blasted, losing a leg, and then erupting in a beautiful ammo explosion. My Wasp was tagged a few times and then crippled itself with a failed death from above attack. The only good thing we managed to do back to our opponents was to blast most of the armor off the Crusader, and it had to shut down temporarily due to overheating.

Since that battle was a learning experience for two of the players, it lasted about 3 hours. But the other experienced player and myself managed to talk the others into going in for a campaign of Battletech. The other player will GM the campaign, and I get to drive a mech.

I played in a campaign back in the mid 80s (driving an Archer), and I GMed a campaign in the mid 90s. During and in between those campaigns, I played several lance-vs-lance battles as one-offs. I’m very excited to get to play a campaign again – this time I’m driving an Enforcer mech

Here’s hoping this campaign will be as fun as the ones I played 1.5 and 2.5 decades in the past.

Bullgrit

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