Certainly, this thing sounds better than the cardboard counters we are using now =) (And pre-painted miniatures sound good even when newer rules might not. Personally, if the newer offerings will turn out intolerable, I will stick with the old FASA stuff (undoubtedly excellent) and build new 'house rules' on top of those if such is needed (though I may not need that - so far, with people I have played, we are not even using all the rules in 4th ed!) if the newer things are good, there is no reason not to try them out. : Some comments about Stride's writeup: Anger makes you leap forth, and you forgot to duck my LRM strike and now you are 1 XP poorer. BattleTech is simply something that I prefer to do more often in one form or another.

however, I'm not saying that Japanese Mecha stuff would be inferior. This is just a matter of taste, of course. Some random opinions about Fondue's writeup: Personally, I think BattleMechs have much more 'style' compared to Japanese creations.

As one reviewer of Pelit computer game magazine said, 'the larger-than-life machines need a larger-than-life story behind them'. Not many science fiction settings can reach this level of detail. The background world of the game, the conflict between worlds of Inner Sphere and The Clans, and even the internal schisms of the said factions, is something fairly epic. (BattleTech is one of the few games in which 'go jump in lake' taunt actually might be construed as a good advice =) But the coolest (no pun intended) part of the rules is the heat: Using weapons and running around understandably generates heat, giving another risk of damage. Some people criticize the armor rules are getting old, but at least they work: Each unit has armor and internal structure points When armor gets pierced, internal structure gets damage and eventually leads to critical hits. Apart of these walking horrors, the Master Rules also include rules for power armor units (such as Clan Elementals), normal vehicles ( tanks, boats, VTOLs, and such), normal infantry and, of course, artillery. The core of the each unit is made of BattleMechs, bipedal anthropomorphic war machines with enough firepower to effortlessly blow up everything less powerful than another BattleMech of equal tonnage. On my opinion, the rules are basically very simple, but at the fullest possible set of rules considered, an enormous amount of time will go to playing each turn. First, everyone moves (player who lost initiative moves first), and then everyone's weapon fire is resolved at once. The players control, on their turn, a number of units. As it stands, BattleTech's last version is the 4th Edition. It was made by FASA until they closed down in early 2001 Currently made by Whizkid Games. BattleTech is a table-top strategy game (not a RPG the complementing game MechWarrior makes it a RPG, though).

Battletech toys