Though it can drag a game out, I suggest against prematurely ending a game due to a mech having both legs gone. Using the "prop yourself up with one arm" rule, I've totally had enemies try to finish a beat-to-hell mech off, only to get counter-attacked at the very last minute. Extra dramatic!
That would make for some awesome last stand scenarios where the mech loses both legs and the pilot refuses to give up propping them self up with either one or both arms and shooting whatever they have left at the enemy trying to hold out for reinforcements while holding the line
I'm imagining an old, beat up Mackie/Thunderbolt/pick an old mech half put together, a museum piece propped up against a wall firing at some Clanner Jerks with everything they've got. A Legless turret waiting for a bastard to walk past it so that it can hit rear armor before being obliterated.
@@solaire773 this comment reminded me when i worked in a hotel many many years ago and a customer came rolling in on a skateboard. he lost both legs and used both arms to propel himself (in reference to your "pilot refuses to give up"). Got himself a lovely wife and kids too. Fucking hero that guy
@28:52 Ammunition explosions from Heat do not target the "most destructive" bin, they target the "most destructive bin *per shot*" (BMM, pg. 52). This means the most volatile ammo goes off, not necessarily the biggest-boomy one, and there can be a huge distinction. For example, if the mech has a full ton of MG ammo (200 shots, 2 dmg) that is 400 points of damage in the bin. If the same mech also has a full ton of LRM20 ammo (6 shots, 20 dmg) that is only 120 points of damage. The LRM ammo slot will go off in the heat-related explosion, not the MG. To really drive this point home, if the mech had been shooting that LRM and only had 1 shot left in its only bin of ammo remaining, it would still explode before the MG as it is the "most destructive bin per shot" and would only do 20 points of total damage in the explosion. Granted, yes, this is all internal and still usually fatal (especially if other ammo is nearby), but I feel this needs to be made clear as I see a lot of players just "exploding" the biggest boom available, when that is incorrect.
I play Battletech for over 35 years now, but I never experianced an amunition explosion thoug overheat. So, I really have to look in the rulebook and you are right.
I love how your example for "other mechs do not block line of sight" is an Urbanmech, notorious for being short slow-moving trash cans. Something a Lyran Atlas kicks over on its way to 'scout' some civilians.
Cheap, small, and equipped with a big weapon. Underestimate them at your peril. In the video games you fight like one or two, but they were clearly meant to be deployed in large numbers and sit right where they are, waiting for something big and dumb to walk into an ambush. They suck at walking out into the field and fighting, but they weren't meant for that. They are good at what they were designed for, and really only that.
Those two won't ever realistically square off in an equal BV match, but if you've ever tried to fight against one or two Urbanmechs supported by mechanized infantry and a few Pattons in a city you'd know how useful they are
What a legend, this is probably the most succinct and comprehensive (within the timespan) tutorial for Battletech that now exists on RU-vid, and believe me when I say I've seen pretty much all of them. Thanks for putting in the time and effort to film and edit this; I especially enjoyed the use of the videogames to illustrate things. If I had to critique anything (and I do because I'm a bastard) I'd say that the music is slightly too loud, and an explanation on the subtle difference between firing arcs and receiving damage arcs would have been nice, but otherwise, that was very solid indeed!
I love how BT history has so many parallels to 40k imperium, the main difference being where the Imperium basically just went off the rails and continued to decline and slowly crumble in BT they rediscovered and even improved on what was lost.
@@Agustin_Leal I feel like warhammer is literally just battletech and Dune smashed together and dialed up to 11 for ridiculousness. Idk if BT came out before Warhammer, but I know Dune was written before warhammer. It even has a God emperor.
Awesome tutorial... sounds complicated at first, but once you learn it, it becomes totally second nature. Been playing BT on the 1st Saturday of the month since early '91 with a core group of 4 guys... a few others have come & gone, but us 4 have been at it over 30 years.
Thanks! It’s tough learning the rules without a mentor there to teach and correct you. I’m reading through the BattleMech Manual right now and it is so dense with info. I want to master it all so I can advocate for the game at my local shop.
@15:28 Ammunition should be ticked off by all players in the declaration step of the Weapon Attack Phase, not the resolution step (BMM, pg. 31). Not doing it this way can create errors, such as forgetting to mark off an "empty" shot after an ammo-based attack becomes invalid (or simply skipped out of convenience, eg. the target was already queued to be destroyed at the end of Phase). It's just a good habit to get into.
if my memory serves... the one that had beef with Battletech 'Unseen' design wasn't the owner of the Macross anime rather it was Harmony Gold USA, the company in US that bought the US broadcast right for 3 separate anime (one of which is Macross) and turned them into that frankenstein they called Robotech. The owner of Macross in Japan as well as their original creator probably didn't even know about the existence of Battletech until the whole thing exploded into lawsuit and probably didn't care either. Harmony Gold on the other hand who bought the rights... well sort of bought the rights, they didn't actually own the complete Macross license in the west and it's design and the right they had is only for a subset involving the original series, which is why they had to come up with their own continuation as they are NOT legally allowed to use any Macross material post the original series... yeah Harmony Gold care a great deal about others using what HG claim as theirs... And the fact that Harmony Gold DID NOT strictly speaking own the design for Macross mechs (as they DID NOT create them obviously...) well that's apparently secondary.
I have painstakingly acquired almost all of the old battletech books. Been playing the tabletop since 1992. I got into the high level rules, with experimental parts and some more complicated math for hit or miss and piloting skill.
Liked and subscribed. I loved this video for its summarized explanation. What is most difficult is to visualize and imagine. Rules in text format are intimidating. This video does a great job crossing that boundary in a great way to show a different perspective. To imagine height from a flat sheet is hard too. This is why I found the visual guide of "Battletech fan" channel very useful. The advantage of this video is that you have a well ediited video with a spot on explanation, all in one video. With Battletech Fan videos the advantage is that you go at your own pace (as everything is 100% visual, no narrator or voices) and it has a full visual demonstration (to the finest detail) of what you should imagine with each rule. For example * what happens when prone or when a leg is lost? You see how a prone mech with only one leg should move. * With water you actually see the mech submerged. And you see why submerged jets in the legs should not work. No need to imagine. * And for physical attacks you actually see where mechs should fall. * You actually see what happens when jumping on water. This video uses Battletech manual as reference. Battletech fan uses the rulebook contained in the Battletech a game of armored combat boxset as reference, and videos are designed to watch with that rulebook on your hands. What is certain is that more is more and we could never have enough videos. I recommend to watch them all as each one offers different explanation approaches for different types of learning. I was amazed at the effort of this video to make great editing. Impressive. We can always see different perspectives on the same topic. And there are always more new topics. For example the short concise explanation of BiggRigg42 channel on non mech units, for example. Summarizing in 30 minutes is hard. There is a trade off between being complete and retaining an audience attention. This video is like having the professor explaining. Battletech fan is like having a textbook with diagrams. I love when players take different paths to make sure everyone is covered. In the end it is a win for the community.
It's been a long long time since I played. Even then, I only played a handful of times. This video reminds me how close Hare-Brained Schemes mirrored the original rules in the BattleTech PC strategy game. Thanks for this video!
as someone new to the game: THANK YOU FOR INCLUDING THE TERRAIN AND LINE OF SIGHT RULES !!! That shit took me ages to get used to in 40k, but this explains it so well
This is best tutorial i've see so far on how to play battletech. Pacing, presentation, and editing was quite good. Though i think to completely un-initiated they could be confused by the switching between mechwarrior video games and the actual board game. But it did make for interesting demonstration of mechs exploding violently.
Did anyone else ever start their wargaming hobby with a game called Heroscape? If so, the terrain pieces make really awesome three-dimensional battle maps. Slap some glue on the top portion of the tiles, sprinkle some sand, rocks, flock, etc. and BAM! You got some pretty functional, modular terrain to use for some of your war games. Don't know why this popped into my mind while watching this video, out of all the other war-game videos I watch on a daily basis, but I hope this gives someone a cool idea. Happy Gaming, ya'll.
@@Lani133 From what I can gather there are still terrain packs on sites like Ebay. I have a box full of them back home. I may collect them on my next visit. Especially since battletech just looks cooler and cooler everyday.
@@Lani133 Last I heard about it was some channel here on RU-vid, and I believe a post on Reddit. Searching either for “HeroScape 2024” should point you in the right direction! I’d try RU-vid first, ‘cos the video I saw a while back seemed to have a lotta good info.
I've been trying to get into Battletech for a long time, and the AGOAW box ran out of stock soon after I bought the Beginner Box as a try, so I never got deeper into it and don't really have any type of community around me to play anyway, but this video really helped me understand more of the rules. Great video.
Omg your video is so convenient in explaining battletech in a clear, quick and straightforward manner, I showed this to a friend and he got it on the first go!
Great Video. I am new to Battletech and therefore started playing according to alpha strike rule set, but after your video i will give it a shot. Especially it helps me to interduce the rules to friends and my son.
I've been into the Mechwarrior computer games and the novels for a long time, but never actually played the tabletop game. This was a good and easy to follow briefing.
Big thanks for clarifying the how attacks are handled; the difference between declaring, resolving, and damaging. I really struggled to understand that just reading through the book.
This is an amazing video. Just picked up some battle tech yesterday with a friend out of curiosity not knowing what we were getting into. There were a lot of other videos and manuals making it difficult to understand but this video cleared it up in an amazingly simple fashion for such a complex series of rules. Amazing!
Good video. Minor correction though. At 10:21, assuming your commando started facing SW in 1514, he could not have made it to hex 1014 without using 10 MP of running movement, which he doesn't have. Furthest he could have run was 1115 NW.
I haven't played since 2nd or 3rd edition and just ordered the Core boxset. Happy to hear not much has changed. Watching this video caused 35 years of peripheral knowledge to flood back. Great overview!
Never played tabletop, but I always loved BattleTech and MechWarrior video games. I played the most recent BattleTech game and really enjoyed it. I can't believe how similar it is in feeling to what you described as the tabletop game, and now my interest is peaked, ever so slightly, in tabletop.
The deployment and the way initiative reminds me of a metagaming trick in Warhammer 40 000. Aa you deployed units interchangeably, the person with the larger number of units got a recon advantage of knowing more of the opponents deployments, and leaving several units to deploy in response. This was also part of the advantage of infiltrating units, as they always deployed after the regular units.😊
What a great video - I’m a total beginner and this is really helpful. Although I’m at the halfway mark and the combat targeting section suddenly gets a little hard to follow due to several weapon/target declarations 🙂
Am I the only one who got really excited by how complicated the critical damage rules were. I cannot wait to play this game. Waiting for my boxsets to arrive. Thanks for the video this helped alot.
Ohhh yeah, that's a huge part of the charm, that these things are pretty much simulated. And that's WITHOUT optional rules like Through Armor Criticals.
Playing becomes interesting if you buy "mechwarrior destiny" rulebook. It is a role playing game focused on narration. If you loved DnD or Mechwarrior 2nd edition this will be too simple. But for a newbie like me it is appropriate. Mechanics do not slow down the pace of game. You may solve mech combat with its rules and no tabletop but I prefer tabletop. It has rules to convert to tabletop. Unlike DnD where you create character arcs and you navigate in a maze, Destiny offers you missions. Think of Mass Effect missions. It has pregenerated characters, missions, vehicles and 3025 or clan era tech. You can create your own characters or missions.
Man, this is a spot on video! 👍🏾 I recently started listening to the MechBay podcast and those guys are great! Came home to learn more, and your video pops up. Great job and thank you. Will definitely be playing this game soon after doing a little more research and find a group to play with.
I played on tabletop sim against myself following this guide and my stalker 4p immediately overheated to 24, it shut down, their SRM on the left torso exploded with 14 ammo left, causing 28 damage to the internals and losing both it and the left arm erm fun game
thanks for making this, i really enjoyed it! i would love to see similar videos exploring the rules in more depth, like expansions and sourcebooks if those exist!
Love this explanation of the game system in a concise manner. If any are interested in extremely in depth lore I'd recommend Tex as his talks got me interested in the universe and thereby the tabletop afterwards
Been playing Mechwarrior since Mechwarrior 2 back in, like, 1995. Always been curious about the tabletop game and how exactly that worked. Thanks for the basic info about how it works, generally! Interesting to know how that works, and to see how some of the things you can do in-game applied in their original format!
the only comment you make several times that is incorrect - deciding which era to play does not change the rules. even the tech doesn't really change. pre Starleague (era pre 2550) still has alot of the tech you see in the 3050 clan invasion era. check the 2750 TRO. these items existed pre-starleague: er lasers, pulse lasers, er ppc, streak missiles, beagle probe, guardian ecm, tag for arrow IV system, Artemis IV, endo steel, ferro-armor and several more. the only difference is that during the succession wars (2786 - 3039) the innersphere destroyed much of their ability to reproduce these items, but they still exist. the clans (2830-3050) spent time creating their society and improving those same technologies. that's why during the battle of Tukyyid (3052) Comstar used alot of original Starleague era mechs/vehicles that had similar capabilities as the clan tech. thus, gave Comstar an edge in the campaign. back on point - these are different era's, but not different rules. there is nothing added/subtracted from the game turn. nothing has been banned, nerfed or 'determined illegal'. all factions have most tech available to them (per the lore). as someone who's played numerous different game systems, when you state that there are different rules, then there is an expectation of something significantly different with the game mechanics. battletech has the exact same game mechanics since Battledroids. everything I used in 1st edition is playable in 5th edition - no modifications required. this is unlike other games where a new edition may be a completely different game mechanic, just using the same IP. StarWars by GDW and StarWars by WotC, same IP, very different rules. or even D&D, very different game mechanics between 2e, 3.5e, 4e and 5e. the same game, but method for resolving challenges is different for each version.
Here's a couple thoughts. I'd enjoy the idea of each game being matched by C-bill budget, with a few caveats. 'Mech customization should have a C-bill cost in addition to the actual material ("labor"). I'd also think that knowledge about your opponent's force ought to have a scaled cost, as well ("intelligence budget"). It would also be interesting to simultaneously play multiple fields set on the same planet, at whatever distance from each other the campaign requires (reinforcements manage to succeed/fail in the objective of reaching another board).
That would be a very BattleTech-y thing to do. The devs used to release house rules they came up with pretty often and they were usually attempts to simulate sonething the game usually wouldn't.
thanks for showing the die next to the mech for the targeting movement modifier. I play battalion level conflicts with mixed units (infantry, armor, vtol, aero, mechs and artillery). we place a 2nd die next to each unit to indicate the units type of movement modifier. it's very useful when each side has 40 to 60 pieces in the battle. even company (12 mechs) vs binary (8 mechs), this is a useful tool.
Really enjoyed this video! Great primer. I got the Kickstarter box sets a couple of years ago and pledged in the Mercenaries KS too but never got round to playing. You should do more vidoes
I remember doing a DfA with my Wraith and killing the pilot..lost one of my legs but it was GLORIOUS!! Retired the old girl after 4 campaigns and switched to a Locust/Atlas depending on the campaign type. (our games went for months on end) ahh the memories!!
Late to the party here, and not sure if anyone else mentioned, but, your Running movement example of the Commando (9 min) has an error. If the commando started in hex 1514, it would cost the commando the following: 1 point to run to hex 1414. [8 points remaining] 4 points to climb the Level 2/Light Woods hill in hex in 1315 (1 point to enter hex, +2 for 2 levels, +1 for Lt woods) [4 points remaining] 1 point to enter hex 1215 [3 points remaining] 1 point to turn 1 hexside to right [2 points remaining] 2 points to enter hex 1115 (1 point for entering hex +1 point to go up 1 level) [0 points remaining] At this point your commando has now used all 9 points of movement, and would have a TMM of 1 for moving 4 hexes.
How to play Battletech: Step 1. get a lucky head shot with some SRMs from your Commando to a Battlemaster and have it fail multiple pilot checks Step 2. Have enemy mech crit your engine and watch as your Commando slowly burns up Step 3. Get lucky again and punch a locust square in the head and instantly kill the pilot Step 4. Watch Commando explode because of heat. Step 5.Victory? It was...definitely an action packed game I'll tell you that, ran a little long even though we were only playing a 2v2 game. I guess it speeds up once you get more accustomed to the rules.
@@themanrightbehindyou I seem to remember reading that but I grew up before that was a thing. I have a hard cover of the new BMM but habits die hard; we used only white dice for movement (or later the tiny green dice from Warhammer). Last time I played was at Gencon a couple years back but we did not observe that rule while playing. Mind you I did spend over 12 hours (I think) playing and ended up with art from [i forget his name] of his mech shooting my spider out of the air. I got some revenge(not on him) by kicking an opposing mech's head off. It was a great day.
I tend to play alpha strike, still on hexmaps, more than the classic battletech. The faster play and possibility to have larger battles is really amazing. The classic rules are more suitable in a more duell style of game, with more focus on individual pilots and mechs...
