Cult Of Games XLBS: Is Battletech Still Worth Playing in 2021? Let’s See What John Thinks!
August 29, 2021 by avernos
For some website features, you will need a FREE account and for some others, you will need to join the Cult of Games.
Or if you have already joined the Cult of Games Log in now
What difference will having a FREE account make?
Setting up a Free account with OnTableTop unlocks a load of additional features and content (see below). You can then get involved with our Tabletop Gaming community, we are very helpful and keen to hear what you have to say. So Join Us Now!
Free Account Includes
- Creating your own project blogs.
- Rating and reviewing games using our innovative system.
- Commenting and ability to upvote.
- Posting in the forums.
- Unlocking of Achivments and collectin hobby xp
- Ability to add places like clubs and stores to our gaming database.
- Follow games, recommend games, use wishlist and mark what games you own.
- You will be able to add friends to your account.
What's the Cult of Games?
Once you have made a free account you can support the community by joing the Cult of Games. Joining the Cult allows you to use even more parts of the site and access to extra content. Check out some of the extra features below.
Cult of Games Membership Includes
- Reduced ads, for a better browsing experience (feature can be turned on or off in your profile).
- Access to The Cult of Games XLBS Sunday Show.
- Extra hobby videos about painting, terrain building etc.
- Exclusive interviews with the best game designers etc.
- Behind the scenes studio VLogs.
- Access to our live stream archives.
- Early access to our event tickets.
- Access to the CoG Greenroom.
- Access to the CoG Chamber of Commerce.
- Access the CoG Bazarr Trading Forum.
- Create and Edit Records for Games, Companies and Professionals.
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
![Warcradle Studios Reveal TINY New 10mm Festive Marker! [Updated]](https://images.beastsofwar.com/2025/11/christmas-kyle-main-600-338.jpg)
It’s the XLBS Show…………Happy Sunday Fellow CoGs!
That “Sunday Greetings” from the group was almost Choir like!
From 1987 through 1990’s we played BattleTech every week. We blended the Mechwarrior RPG with the Battletech Tabletop game. We started at the beginning and played through everything in the timeline. Ours was a merc group that started as House Steiner regulars and we were abandoned on a lonely planet, so we struck out on our own. We had such a great time with the games. So many memories. MY mech of choice was the Maurader and my second choice was the Madcat. We even included BattleSpace into our games later on. Our group played on custom tables. I even built a table in the back of my old house that was 12 feet long by 6 feet wide. I placed a custom lighting system over the top of the table and light would be zoomed in to pinpoint light to just a certain area of the table. We turned the lights off in the room and the walls and ceiling were painted black. With the cheap old stereo system in the room and about 8 speakers mounted in the corners of the room and a few over the top of the table we had what we thought was a pretty kick’n gaming room. This was when I first played around with styrofoam wire cutting. We made terrain and fuel refineries. Also some rough cityscapes as well.
Right there with you @brennon I’m planning a ‘Fellowship of the Ring’ run through from book start to end. I started gathering forces for Helms Deep a good while back. But it’s been slow getting the troops for Helms Deep at the price I want to pay, but I think doing Fellowship battles should be a little easier.
Well DONE to all the Golden Button Winners! I aspire to someday join your ranks….(of course that will require me to actually post up and finishing a project in the OTT system) Well, its a dream anyways!
oh never worry about finishing a project, all projects are viable targets for the butt butt dings!
That gaming room reminds me of my friend’s gaming room, we referred to it as the room of black, we played our RPGs in there
first….sort of like number 1
happy sunday,
The Reaper miniatures “Cav” range should be easier to get in the UK and could be used as proxies.
Love BT, have been a fan since the mid 90s, but stayed away from the awful metal miniatures forever. Only got into it with the new plastic minis from the kickstarter and the alpha strike rules. Don’t want to spend a weekend or longer to play battle of 2-4 Mechs per side.
Happy weekend.
Happy Sunday Everyone hope this finds you all Grand. Great to see John and Lloyd. Battle tech isn’t for me but I know Brigade Models do some nice Mechs in both 15 and 6mm but I’m not sure as to Battle tech scale. Currently torn about what new project to invest in. I was thinking taking some bolt action Americans and creating a French indo china force with the new French sprus due to be released from Wargames Atlantic. However with the American Flames of War starter box on the horizon I was thinking of reducing the scale for my indo china french. On top of that I really like the French Legion on offer from Artizan….too many choices.
I’m unboxing French Foreign Legion from https://www.1898miniaturas.com/shop/en/52-french-foreign-legion-28-mm-miniatures They’re very nice. Just leaving this here, no reason
Thanks I saw these. Its a great range from 1898 and I have some Spanish American minis from them that are great quality. I had my eye on the mounted officer in pith helmet as if I go the Artizan path will likely go for the Pith Helmet range they do and aim for a 19th Century Tonkin….tanks or mules that’s the question ?
It is hard to find nice Battletech models most are not up to modern mini standards, the new plastic catalyst games models are great, but they are basically always sold out. I started to really get into battletech about 2 years ago playing alpha strike exclusively as it is quicker. But I discovered this treasure trove of stl files on myminifactory.
https://www.myminifactory.com/users/Syllogy
All the models are free on the site and they are based on the video game mechwarrior online, they print beautifully and are much more modern and “realistic” looking.
I will try to post some pictures later when I have a chance so you can see the quality
I do have a couple of these. They are great for sure. Probably go that way if I expand any of the forces I get my hands on 🙂
thankfully you have a tamed Justin on hand
Wish I had a Justin…
Happy Sunday!! From a strange house with dodgy internet… will catch up later.
Ok, so Battletech. There are 2 current intro boxes – a 2-player starter for £20 that gives each player a single Medium-mech to throw down with and a stripped down set of intro rules. Then there is the A Game of Armoured Combat that provides a broader selection for mechs in all classes and the core rulebook (the Primer Gerry mentions is included in the AGOAC set and Clan Invasion includes a Clan Primer).
Personally I’ve come to the franchise by way first of Mechwarrior 3 & 4 and then – heretically – the Dark Age/Age of Destruction tie-in novels before delving back in to the lore. I have to say the novels are pretty fascinating. I’m quite enjoying where the setting is now with the dawn of the IlKhan-era and the descendants of several well known heroes carving their own legends.
I know that the 2-Player Starter and AGOAC boxes have been selling out for Catalyst almost as soon as they come back in stock, and finding product in the UK is especially difficult – they are looking to open UK & EU distribution hubs in the next few months, so that should see things improve. The current aim has been to modernise the mini sculpts to bring them in line with those from Mechwarrior Online, Mechwarrior 5 and the (frankly sublime and imminently moddable) Battletech game from Harebrained Schemes.
The Clan Invasion Kickstarter was aimed at continuing this and funded a damned good chunk of the mechs from the Star League/4th Succession War/Clan Invasion to be made in quite nice plastic. Wave 1 landed at retail between December and this past May, with the Clan Invasion boxedset, 2 Clan Star packs and 2 Inner Sphere Lance packs. Wave 2 is currently shipping to backers worldwide and includes everything else – a staggering array of mechs, maps, sourcebooks and the like. Hopefully it should hit retail in the next few months.
And as a surprise for backers they have included a Shilone-class Aerospace fighter, which has sparked conversations about whether CGL will be looking to fund Tanks & Aircraft if they go back to Kickstarter, or if they will look to later eras (I won’t deny I’d love to see updates of some FedCom Civil War chassis, as well as a fair few from across the Jihad, Republic & Dark Age eras…..).
And yeah, there are some excellent 3d-designs if you look around – I backed a couple of Patreons for guys who had not just individual chassis, but multiple variants covering the majority of the loadouts, and if you look on Thingiverse & Cults3D there are a wealth of offerings for free. Now I just need a 3D Printer for them (did find an excellent Black Knight with sword & board on Ebay that I’m expecting soon…)
As this went live, I had just finished painting a copy of the clan invasion box I managed to get my hands on. Still in a bidding for a copy of agoac. If I manage to win it, I’ll be very content to see how catalyst manage to establish more distribution.
Even got myself one of the bt audiobooks and deeply enjoying it.
I’m just trying to decide on what I’m going to paint everything (I have a few older metal mechs, as well as some resins based on the MWO designs, but on top of all the mechs included in my KS rewards – I went for the Star Colonel level – I’ve an extra set each of the minis from the AGOAC & Clan Invasion boxes. So. Many. Mechs >_< . I think I may have to look at the Alpha Strike rules for larger games…)
I have to say that I'm liking CGL's commitment to making their back catalogue of fiction available again with nice new covers, as well as all-new fiction that's been filling in a few gaps as well as moving the narrative forward. And it's nice that they are doing novels, novellas and short story anthologies, as well as making more books available in audiobook. Oh, and Sarna.net is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the franchise, and I second your recommendation of Tex and the Black Pants Legion. They put out some entertaining & informative videos.
Just going to throw this out here from CGL’s latest update to the Clan Invasion Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cgl/battletech-clan-invasion/posts/3278934
Given the figures they quote for the sales of the prior 4 starter sets (2 of which I own myself) the numbers of copies printed, sold, and coming in the latest reprints for the Beginner Box, A Game of Armoured Combat and Clan Invasion are signs that Battletech would appear to be in rude health going forward and (hopefully) reprints will start to trickle out in the coming months. We’ll see if the team can maintain the momentum going forward…
Happy Sunday! Thank you guys for the golden button – that was a nice surprise! Next chapter is now up on the project, and waiting for a box of dire wolves to arrive for the subsequent chapter. The crew are off to a new planet next as well so I might treat myself to a new game mat!
I also need to credit Gerry with the Westfalia model suggestion. I’m not crediting him for the PunkPocalyptic indie of the week making me buy a bunch of their stuff (he doesn’t need that kind of encouragement ?) but at least I found good use for them ?
my work here is done 🙂
Hi XLBS COGz
So Lloyd is a Hobbit then?
Another great show lads, I remember seeing Battletech at one of the large events held here in Queensland, back when events were a thing. Actually, I think one of my Club mates has some of it too. Anyway too lazy to do hobby for the show, I did go hunting through my photos to see if I could finish off the On Hold project from the Spring Cleaning Challenge. It’s all finished now, and I really like how the Repulsor came out. The other project, I’m still waiting for stats for it to be made.
If battletech is only available in the US @warzan could look into a US branch to the OTT STORE? perhaps guy’s.
Still watching this weeks episode, but just had to comment on the ‘sword straightening’ method using the long nose pliers with plain jaws. Why not use the pliers on a parallel axis to the sword, rather than at right angles? Then you get the whole sword length in one hit! If any ‘fine tuning’ required after, then use the pliers at right angles at those remaining ‘bendy bits’. If not too bent, then probably a redundant process?
; )
PS, enjoying this weeks show.
I shall give that a go! I have the pliers at the ready!
Because it will not close evenly along the length it will start nipping the front before it can close on the end.
This won’t happen using them sideways. As the width of a sword is allot less than it’s length.
@brennon
If you have a standard set of pliers cover the blades with tape to stop them marking the models @brennon
it depends, if it is one bend you can.
However, firstly I found with multiple bends in both directions that it is less stress on the metal to do one at a time, and secondly because the pliers are a hinged V shape you will crush and flatten the tip before you contact the blade close to the hilt.
Aagh wordy word’s Noooooooooo.
Battletech is sounding very fractured like the battletech universe.
Stop eating ?
Why ?
Currently, (from 7am outside in UK) painting my Easterlings for a battle next weekend (hopefully). Using mostly stripped metal figures from back in the day with a few plastic reinforcements. Can really see the superior detail on the metals. The army leader is Khamul the Easterling (one of the nine). Sadly, he is resin – his horse ‘wilts’ in the sunshine!!!
Interesting, https://www.beastsofwar.com/members/brennon/ Khamul comes from GW in the three-packs of the nine in more detailed form – Witch King, Dark Marshall, Undying, Bretrayer, etc – of which about 2/3 are still metal,
Yer I’ve seen they have been repackaging the named Wraiths! They do look tempting 😀
@brennon, I have a duplicate full set of nine Ringwraiths lying around, I believe.
I need to confirm that they are duplicates, but I’ll be happy to ship them your way if you want.
No snapped swords, so they’re in good condition. They’re from blisters and not from the boxed set I think, because there are two duplicate poses in there.
But if you’re interested, they’re yours.
I would be very much up for that if you could send me a pic when you’ve had a chance to sort them. Just fire me a PM here on OTT @harpoon71 and can sort something out 😀
Get John to come round with his tank and just drive through the campervan an they won’t block the drive way again @lloyd ?
Huh, no one mentioned Iron Wind Miniatures.. metal, but what can you do
Will have to pass that on to John!
well I didn’t mention them because they’re just the Ral Partha models that we did talk about, but in the US
I think it might be Iron wind models sold by RPE or maybe vice versa. Don’t think anyone knows anymore
A fabulous show guy’s ?.
Happy Sunday!
00:35 Get well soon @avernos
02:35 Never get Robotech and Battletech mixed @lloyd
04:00 The Battletech homepage is horrible. There is still so much stuff from the old releases, you don’t want to go there. Basically you need to look at what logo they use. The new logo is on the Beginners Box, the “A Game of armoured Combat” box and the Clan Invasion box. The other, older logo is on stuff that’s now more ore less defunct. But yeah… it’s sold out a lot of times 😉
05:20 Yeah… it took me the better part of 3 months to get to grips of what book you want XD Still not completely sure about anything though
06:45 Battletech is the rock in the sea… never change it! 😉
14:00 Stompy robots and a game version that is called “ALPHA STRIKE”…. I never doubted Justin to be part pf Battletech 😉
15:15 I agree. But there is the “Beginners Box”. Two mechs, 8 standees and a “boiled down” rulebook. But there could be more. At least a table of sort. “How complex do you want your game to be?”
21:20 Was it really that hard to get the 2 player set? I mean it took some time until it got to the FLGS but then it sat on the shelf a long time. Maybe because it’s English and not German.
22:00 I think Catalyst is trying to get everything under one umbrella because they made the page https://www.battletech.com/ from where you can get to the tabletop games and the various video games. And they try to get it all to look the same by using the same artworks and logos.
26:45 I’d say the hex map makes it even more tactical. Because you can see where the enemy can be. There’s little room for errors in measurement
31:00 Boiling fish!
32:50 Strip it Ben!
36:00 Wonkey swords!
38:00 Focus @brennon! FOCUS!
43:15 FILTH! RUSS FILTH….. still not quite show what that means…
46:00 poking dudes with wood… oh boy
47:15 Lloyd not having pictures? The body snatchers have got him!
51:15 hectic keymashing… FLOCKING NEIGHBOURS!
55:15 You’re thinking about the YouTube Channel Tabletop Workshop that did that very long video and PDF on contrasts. https://youtu.be/HAkcvsk5QXQ The PDF can be found here: https://www.miniaturicum.de/service/Contrast%20Colours%20guide.pdf
56:45 DRINK!
1:05:00 Halflings! Grognards… I didn’t pay attention, what was it?
1:09:30 Battlereports?!
1:14:00 cheating at taking pictures?! oO
What? Over already? Awww….
Happy Sunday.
Well done to the golden button winners some brilliant stuff there. I’ve only recently got into Five Parsecs myself and love it. I’m really looking forward to Five Leagues From The Boarderlands, the fantasy version by the same writer.
I remember playing Mechwarrior 2 & 3 on PC back in the day and loved it. I’ve never played the tabletop game but I was a player in a friend’s roleplay game.
@johnlyons I got into Battletech during the interm between the 3rd and the 4th War of Succession. The crowning event that lead to the 4th War of Succession was the marriage of Hanse Davion to Melissa Steiner. I got to see the war start in real time. Ahh, the good old days before the Clan Invasion.
Anywho, let me help you spend money. Go to Iron Wind Miniatures if you want metal models. They also do the Ral Partha legacy stuff as well.
My Battletech stuff is Lyran Common Wealth and and Grey Death Legion. The Lyran units are from a guard regiment and are the heavy mechs. The Grey Death Legion is technically a mercenary regiment but have been working for the Lyrans for so long they’re effectively a fully integrated part of the Lyran military.
My personal favorite mech might be the Bushwacker. It was the starting mech of Mechwarrior 3.0. That game had the best storyline of any of the video games and featured a bad drop by the mercenary Eridani Light Horse regiment (an ancient Star League unit that went mercenary when General Kerensky left the inner sphere) on a clan held world. You had to regroup with the survivors and then fight your way to a ship, take it over, and then fly off world. Amazing!
I’ve played games of Battletech on those Heroscape boards, they’re a lot of fun. I’ve also played Alpha Strike on a traditional table top. It’s great if you like larger battles and simpler rules, but the core of Battletech is always going to be the small Lance vs Lance fights.
The part where Hanse gives Melissa the Capellan Confederation as a wedding present is a very funny moment in the Warrior novels
Happy Sunday COGS! Haven’t even watched the show yet today. Going to the 49ERS VS RAIDERS game today so I got to get my 10 year old up and ready. GO NINERS!!!! OK… now. Battletech is great(for me) when played between two people with 4 mechs max. Otherwise it takes waaaaayyyyyyyyyy to long to play a fun game. My local FLGS had folks playing it for awhile but they started playing these massive 5 t0 6 people games on a 6×10 table and it was just too big. Like a half hour to 45 minutes between turns. I personally enjoy a faster game. Just my two cents. Have a great day my friends and roll them bones!
Did not expect the opening comments to be Lloyd and Gerry talking about touching their stuff!!
Love the Tim Horton mug John! Didn’t expect to see one in Coleraine when heading to the Jet centre – we’ve eaten the best part of a box of mini doughnuts
@lloyd if you want train based scenarios, try the Monorail scenario from Dropzone Commander. Or is you want something more historical, the forthcoming armored train scenarios from the Blood & Valor expansion, End of Empires. Get some forces for the Eastern Front, including Imperial Russians, Bolsheviks and Czech Legion and just have a grand time with trains.
Happy Sunday lovely people!
I never played Battletech but I spent hours as a kid looking at the schematics of each Mech. I would enjoy seeing a Lets Play with John and Justin. Really nicely painted Rus Lloyd. I can see them working as thugs for Frostgrave to. Fantastic battle report @darkdanegan In spiring stuff. I will try to do something similar with my Gladiators.
Although I am humbled and happy to be given a GB @brennon you gave it too early. I don’t feel I earned it. I have battle reports to add. One in mid to late September will be OTT based. That’s the only clue I’m giving. The innuendoes will be flying.
@avernos BS&C is a fun intro to table top gaming. Card play is simple and strait forward. You can add to the complexity of the game play later on. My 7 year old son and I have been playing it. There is some simple math involved, addition and subtraction. Jerry, I feel that I own you an explanation. I heard you mention my private projects on the UHH. I get inspired in waves sometimes. I dumped all those projects onto the system to 1. clear my head 2. create a queue of projects for the coming months. My goal is to finish BS&C and then move on.
Cheers!
Foe some very good Battletech content go to ‘Death from Above Wargaming’ channel on youtube. They recently did an ‘out-of-the-box’ of the new wave two minis. Worth the watch if you are a new Battletech fan like me.
Thanks, I will give a look.
🙂 don’t worry about it, it’s not just your private projects there are a lot of people who have things sitting private and one cheeky bugger who had a dummy post inside their private project telling me to go away as there was nothing to see.
It’s like they know me ^^
I get it now. Hope you feel better soon.
Great show as always. Glad to see some Battletech time on the show. I bought into this game three months ago. It was very hard to find anything, but I managed to get most of what I needed from Zatu Games, Shiny Games and Firestorm games. I was always interested in this game but I hated the miniatures. They were very stiff looking and static. With the new Catalyst stuff, I finally decided to make the dive after about 17 years. What I never knew was how deep and interesting the lore was. Especially how the different periods interpret themselves on the rules. So for example you would have the technology of the 1st Succession War to be slightly more advanced than the 4th. Kind of a WWI and WW2 situation but in reverse. I am currently building forces for the Clan Wars and my forces are the St.Ives Compact and Smoke Jaguar.
For more info I found these sites very helpful:
The Unit Color Compedium : https://unitcolorcompendium.com/
The Battletech Master Unit List: http://masterunitlist.info/
Death From Above Wargamng: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_xMm_aIho2WrES4ukI_yw
Hope it helps.
Brill show once again, headphones in block out the my wifes show…crap like love island and house-wives of Blackpool or some sodding place.
It’s 34 years since I first played Battltech. Well maybe longer as we first played when it was still called Battledroids Ah well time flies. Pity the clans came along and ruined it all
Truthfully, I was happy without the Clans as well!
But we played thru their introduction and the phase were we lost a lot of the time,, but finally started salvaging their equipment and made it our own.
Good memories. ??
I think for us we had already being playing our BT campaign on and off for about 7 years before the First clans sourcebook appeared. It felt like starting again. The good part was it was before the Internet. We had read about something strange outside the inner sphere in Wolves on the border and our DM had kept the sourcebook a secret from us until we met the Clans for the first time in a fight. Bit of a shock I can tell you
Glad that you noticed the decal sheet as well @johnlyons. The only other DKOK decal sheet I know of is the old forgeworld A4 one, so when I saw everything on the Octarius one my mind started racing with all the possible opportunities. It will most likely just be to DKOK up a Leman Russ but it could so much more. I’ll keep on hoping until GW dash my dreams again ?
I hear you can use them on the plastic thunderhawk
Ouch! Right where it hurts ?
I’ve been playing Battletech since high school when there were just cardboard standees.
Rules-wise, there are two main rules systems: Battletech and Alpha Strike. Battletech is the more detailed system which can be expanded further and further with the Tactics rulebook. This is the one that is usually 1 lance vs 1 lance and is played on the hex maps. Alpha Strike is a more streamlined rules set which lets you play with multiple lances vs multiple lances and is usually played on traditional wargame boards.
As to miniatures, Catalyst knows that they can’t make every version of every mech. Unlike certain other Workshops they are open to the 3D printing world. It’s in the rules that their miniatures represent the generic/traditional versions of the mech and you can proxy them as whatever variant you’re actually using. But really you can play Battletech with cardboard/cardstok standees, flat square or hex chits, Catalyst’s revamped miniatures, the old metal figures from IronWind Metals, any of the “close enough” 3D designed and printed mechs made by multiple companies. Strato Minis Studio in Poland has several reminiscent mechs. Looking up Battletech miniatures on Etsy gets you a ton of miniatures. My personal favorites are TheMechbay which lets you “build a lance/star” orders and does what seems like almost every variant. ModestMinisStudio is another good source I’ve used before as well.
The basic boxed game does come with a setting primer and where to go next. I thought there was a link to the pdf version on Catalyst’s website. If not there then I know it’s on WargameVault.
I’d also suggest Camo Specs Online which is a guide to the paint schemes of the regiments of the setting.