44 replies to this topic

[Wrayeth]

Well, my first introduction to the Battletech universe was MechWarrior 2 back in the mid '90's. A few years later, I had a chance to try tabletop and was...not impressed. With only 2D6 I couldn't see how you could get enough target number variation for player choices to actually matter. I never finished that game.

Then, about two or three years ago I was bored on a weekend with nothing to do, so I picked up some Battletech novels from a used bookstore. Shortly after, I found myself hooked. A few months following that, I walked into a local game store to pick up some stuff for a Rifts game I was running at the time and saw some people playing a game of Battletech. It turned out to be the local Catalyst demo team agent running a king-of-the-hill scenario and it looked to be extremely fun. There were mechs blasting each other to bits, pushing each other off cliffs, and and even several death-from-above maneuvers which knocked mechs off the edge, causing them to fall onto mechs on the level below, which then displaced those mechs onto the level below, etc.

A month or two later, I had a chance to participate in the same demo team agent's "The Word Comes to Galatea" scenario (with the Word of Blake performing an orbital drop onto the mercenary-held world of Galatea). After being assigned to the defending side, I was given a choice of several sets of mechs to try by the demo team agent. I picked the one with a Pillager -3Z and Nighstar -9FC. I did okay with the Pillager, managing to headcap a grasshopper with a gauss rifle shot immediately after the Word forces landed, but that same Pillager later went rogue (part of the scenario's special rules) and abandoned the fight. Meanwhile my Nighstar was...less than stellar. It got shot in the head by a little 30-ton Hussar's ER PPC early in the fight, critting its sensors. Now unable to hit anything due to the penalty and the fact that our WoB opponents were light and highly mobile, I moved in to point-blank range to get physical since damaged sensors don't affect physical attacks...and that same Hussar ran up behind my otherwise undamaged Nighstar and punched its head off. Even so, I had a lot of fun and shortly after picked up both Total Warfare and TRO: 3050 (the Introductory Boxed Set had been out of print for several years at this point).

Since then I've spent...well...a lot of money on Battletech products, from rulebooks to miniatures to plot sourcebooks, and don't regret a bit of it. I even managed to get my hands on a good-sized set of GeoHex terrain last month.

[Tovan Cassidine]

GhostPenalty, on 14 May 2012 - 09:49 AM, said:

What was the first Battlemechs you ever used? Did you win or did you get destroyed? When did you here about Battletech?

I first heard about Battletech in the mid-80s. The first battlemech I ever used was a Stinger. I was part of a light 'mech lance and we took on a lone Marauder. We won, but lost one of the four 'mechs in the process to a lucky PPC shot and another was critically damaged.

After a few engagements I was able to salvage and upgrade to a Phoenix Hawk. Good thing, too, since I lost the 'mech I'd been piloting during that engagement. That character kept the Phoenix Hawk for many years, even after we started playing with the Mechwarrior rules as an adjunct to the original Battletech system. Good times.

[MightyRando]

Ha! The first time I played this, I stopped over at a friend's place and 3 of them were playing this game. I asked if I could join and they gave me a Locust. Well, needless to say, I was destroyed first. One, I didn't really know what I was doing and they were really little help, and two, I was against 2 mediums and a heavy. What a way to get introduced to the game. But I still stuck with it and love it to this day. Even if I don't have anyone here to play against anymore.

Edited by MightyRando, 29 June 2012 - 09:02 AM.

[Tangelis]

I was introduced to BT by my friend and his Dad. I tinkered around with rules and figurines and mock battles in my room to learn the game and such. It was a few weeks later when my friends Dad set up a BT scenario for my friend and I. Both our first ever actual game. We had to take a dropship landing platform defended by 4 goliaths. The two Mechs I controled were a Riflemen and a Pheonix Hawk. My Friend had a Hatchetman and a Marauder. We lost the battle but the point my friends dad was trying to show us was Stategy works far better than run and fire. The second time we played we beat him, severly crippled.... but we beat him.

Obviously... I've been hooked ever since that day.

[cipher]

My first battle: original BT box and 3025, where I played a Griffin.

My lance had two Shadow Hawks, a Dervish, and my Griffin. Eight people were playing. A bunch of kids in the late 80s playing during two back-to-back free periods at school. 7th or 8th grade, I forgot which.

The only thing I remember from the gameplay is noticing my lance mate cheating. When he was hit by an opponent, he'd tick off only some of the weapon's damage. We had our sheets hidden from our opponents with Trapper Keepers. So if he got something like 8 damage, he'd only mark off 4 bubbles. He'd count 1 and fill out half the circle, then 2, fill out the rest, etc. I remember thinking to myself, what a jerk. I'd never do that. But I didn't say anything because he was the person hosting the game and gave me all the materials to join them.

Battletech hasn't changed much since then, but these days I'll call out cheaters.

Edited by cipher, 03 July 2012 - 02:43 PM.