Life may be cheap but my Battletech addiction is expensive!

I love giant robots.  Ever since I saw Robotech as a young child I dreamed of piloting a behemoth of walking metal and devastation.  Then somewhere around the early 1990’s I walked into a place called “Virtual World” located in Old Town Pasadena and my life was changed forever.  It was here that, for the princely sum of $10, I could strap myself into a VR pod a.k.a. “Tesla Pod” for 6 minutes and duke it out with those that had the same dreams as me.  In between games, they had a “pilots lounge” that sold the board game “Battletech” and its long line of novels.

On a lark, I picked up the Battletech boxed set and trundled home with dreams of mechanized destruction.  Unfortunately, being the lonely geek that I was, none of my friends were really interested in playing the boxed game with me.  At this time, the home PC started to make an appearance along with the Sega Genesis and the PC vs. console wars began.  So, on the shelf Battletech was placed and I traded my ‘mech cockpit for an X-Wing fighter to live out my other dream of taking out a Death Star.

Then in 1995, the siren call of the battlemech hit me full force.  Mechwarrior 2 was released for the PC.  My grades went downhill from there.  Through the rest of my high school and college years I played every electronic version of Mechwarrior I could get my hands on.  It was as if battlemech armor was made with a combination of ferro-fibrous and crack.  I just couldn’t get enough.  Then in 1999 the dark day arrived.  Micro$oft’s take on the franchise was, let’s say…adequate.  It looked pretty but the loss of battlemech customization really sucked.

Fast forward again to 2006 and this announcement.  It had been over 10 years since I had purchased my boxed set from the pilot’s lounge at Virtual World.  And this new announcement got me jazzed.  A new, streamlined rules set?!  A new boxed set with actual plastic models instead of cardboard standees?!  I was having a battletech geekgasm.  But what could I do about players?  Luckily, I ended up having some neighbor kids that are huge geeks.  I ended up buying my neighbors kids their own boxed set so they could play outside of our current campaign.  I’m now 49 sourcebooks into this game to keep my addiction sated.  It’s a small collection compared to some of the stories heard on the battletech forum threads.

Like any tabletop wargame, playing is long and involved.  For the beginner I would recommend setting aside a whole evening to get the mechanics down.  Unlike other wargames, you only need the starter box to get going for 2-4 players.  It has the basic rules set and all of the needed materials to get up and running.  Once you have whetted your appetite then feel free to join me in the opium den of the rest of the Battletech universe.

Viva Las Vegas-Elvis Presley