Alpha Strike - The Modern Take on BattleTech

It is a great time to be a BattleTech fan. With Mechwarrior Online having its two year anniversary, the new turn based BattleTech video game being fully funded through Kickstarter by Harebrained Schemes (who brought us Shadowrun Returns) and a slew of new sculpts for many of the “unseen” models like the Warhammer, Locust and Marauder it is a true renaissance for the venerable wargame.

 NewWarhammer Sculpt

Marauder Concept Art

Our gaming group has been playing the BattleTech miniatures game and its RPG “A Time of War/MechWarrior” for nearly two decades. One of the reasons why this game has seen so much play is due to the fact that it covers a lot of gaming real-estate. First off, it is one of the longest running and most detailed game settings ever created. With volumes of source material ranging from RPG and Miniatures sourcebooks to comics, novelizations, video games, toys, an expansive Wiki and even a television series. It is one of the best developed game settings of all time. Along with the rich fiction and source material, BattleTech offers hundreds of models ranging from 2.5 million ton Warships to individual infantrymen. Playing out through nearly a thousand years of recorded cannon, BattleTech is one of the most expansive and diverse miniatures games out there. This allows for a nearly unlimited number of different scenarios and tactical challenges that add to the richness of the RP experience.

Of course, the game is far from perfect. At its core, BattleTech is a simple table top game developed in the 1980’s. This was a time period where complex book keeping, tons of charts and tables and overall clunky mechanics were the norm and it shows. Large games at the company level (12 models per side) can go on for several hours and sometimes days depending on the level of detail used. The system has grown over the years and has added so many expanded and optional rules that it span several large source books (Total Warfare, Strategic Operations, Tactical Operations, TechManual and Interstellar Operations). This may seem like a lot of overkill, but keep in mind that these sourcebooks handle more than just ‘Mech combat. The rules expand on infantry, vehicles, aerospace fighters, warships and battle armor which at some point in the game’s history represented individual standalone games like AeroTech and BattleTroops. 

Along with the outdated game play, the model quality offered by Ral Partha and now Iron Wind Metals is lacking compared to models from Citadel or Privateer Press for example. Years of poor design and lack of updated sculpts has left the BattleTech miniatures catalog substantially lacking.  Additionally, many of the iconic ‘Mechs that defined the original look of the game are no longer available due to various copyright issues. Many of these machines have been updated in Project Phoenix, but still lack the same level of dynamism and detail wargamers have become accustomed to in recent decades. As you can see above though, the model quality is improving drastically, especially with the new unseen models.

That is not to say that Classic BattleTech is a bad game. BattleTech has entertained gamers since 1984 and the current owners of the franchise, Catalyst Game Labs have done a great deal of work to maintain the game’s viability. The most important advance towards the goal of viability, in my opinion has been the advent of Alpha Strike in 2013.

Alpha Strike is based on the mechanics developed for Battleforce 2 published in 1997 which was intended to be an abstracted system that would allow you to run games up to the battalion level (36+ units). This far more modern and streamlined system allows for company level games (12 or so models per side) to be resolved in just a few hours while retaining the distinct “feel” of BattleTech.

Alpha Strike feels like a modern miniatures game. Its core mechanics are very simple and require a minimal amount of book keeping while retaining the basic factors that make BattleTech... BattleTech. Key concepts like ablative armor, internal structure, critical hits, heat management and movement modalities remain, but are cut down to bare basics. Instead of individual tonnages you have a Size value ranging from 1 to 4 representing the Light, Medium, Heavy and Assault classes. Instead of walk and run move you have a simple movement score listed in inches that can be modified with a “j” for jump if the machine is jump capable. Instead of individual hit locations with their own armor and internal structure scores, these concepts are abstracted and streamlined by one score for armor and another for internal structure which represents the overall survivability of any given unit. The various weapons on a vehicle are abstracted into simple damage values for Short, Medium and Long range that are applied after a single to hit roll. Critical Hits are applied any time damage is taken to the internal structure. Instead of rolling to see if a hit caused a critical, the critical chart has several “no effect” entries to represent the failure to score a critical, consolidating the process to one roll.

The game is also completely terrain based and does not require a hex board to work. Ranges and movement are done in inches with the hex base aiding in determining fire arcs. Since the non-uniform scale of the hundreds of models available in the line is an issue, size templates can be used to standardize the size values of vehicles and ‘mechs. Alpha Strike also uses blast templates and deviation for artillery and other area effects.

Instead of full page sheets with hundreds of little bubbles of armor, several different weapon systems and lists of critical spaces, Alpha Strike condenses all the pertinent vehicle information in a sheet the size of a business card, complete with spaces for tracking criticals, heat and damage. Additionally, Catalyst has put up a Master Unit List website that allows you to browse through almost every single unit ever created for the BattleTech universe. Not only can you use this free tool to build your detachments easily, but you can browse by era or affiliation, making it easy to create units for a particular campaign, faction or era.

Classic BattleTech Record Sheet

Alpha Strike Record Card

Along with streamlined and terrain based game play, the Alpha Strike Companion provides unit composition and scenario rules along with a simplified point value system adding a whole new level of meta game which we see in so many other miniatures game systems. Pilot abilities, unit special abilities and equipment “quirks” can also come into play for an added level of detail, but with little added crunch. With the use of battlefield roles, unit composition abilities and a more practical and logical rules set, games take on a completely new dimension that actually plays like the fiction reads in many cases.

Aerospace support is seamlessly integrated into Alpha Strike using an innovative system that abstracts the airspace over your tabletop battle. Air support in the form of bombs, strafing runs or swirling dogfights can be represented easily without taking any focus from what is happening on the table. The Companion further expands on that system by allowing you to play out the battle in space in a similar way.

Artillery, tanks, v-tols, transports, support vehicles, protomechs, power armor and regular infantry are also included to varying degrees of detail creating a comprehensive level of play options that not only match the level of detail in Total Warfare, but in some ways exceeds it since you can personalize units and formations to be designed for certain mission parameters.

Alpha Strike is a strange product. That is to say that this is a parallel product to Total Warfare, Strategic, Tactical and Interstellar Operations. Classic BattleTech is still the flagship game in the BattleTech line and is stull supported by Catalyst, giving players the choice to stay with the venerable wargame and/or play the more modern and fast paced version of the game for minimal investment. I am pretty heavily vested into Classic BattleTech. I own literally hundreds of dollars’ worth of books and own hundreds of models for the game that I have been collecting since the 1980’s. The fantastic thing about it is that for about a $30 investment in Alpha Strike and the Alpha Strike Companion on DriveThru RPG I can integrate Alpha Strike into my gaming lexicon. My miniatures and all the campaign source material still apply, but I have the option of running games either in Classic BattleTech or Alpha Strike depending on the size of game I have and the amount of time I have to play it out. Unlike other game companies that alienate so much of their fan base by creating new editions that basically nullify so much of the previous editions products, Catalyst simply decided to expand upon what already exists and simply provide more options.

In further posts I will be doing a detailed review of Alpha Strike, the Alpha Strike Companion and the A Time of War RPG. I will also be detailing the progress of our SLDF campaign, the process of collecting and painting the models, character creation and how it plays out in A Time of War and Alpha Strike.

Shadowrun 5th Edition Review

Having read through SR5 and having played all previous editions I thought I would jot down a review of the game from an old geezer’s perspective. This, by and far has been one of my favorite games of all time and perhaps the most persistently played game in my RPG career. I have a true fondness for this game both thematically and mechanically, but I have to admit that I have had some issues with some of the changes Catalyst has made in order to streamline the game with some notable pleasant surprises arising from the same design goal.

For those of you who may not know much about Shadowrun and the Shadowrun universe, here is a brief rundown chummer. The first thing you need to know is that corporations “extraterritoriality” was established some time ago.  That means that megacorps are treated as their own sovereign country in most respects and abide by their own laws. There is a corporate court and some oversight, but for the most part corps adhere to their own laws and practices while more traditional governments simply administer things that the corps don’t really care to deal with.

The Matrix is now the pervasive all-encompassing method of data exchange that exists as a virtual reality world of icons and glowing floating ziggurats in a massive black digital landscape. People can “jack in” to the Matrix, basically putting their meat brains straight into this digital world or you can hop in with VR gloves and trodes, but the true hot shots go in Hot VR.

Of course this makes for a perfect Cyberpunk style setting right? Here is the twist. In 2011 the Awakening happened. The general theory is that magic comes into the world in epochs. That is that there are times when magic is virtually nonexistent and other times when it comes back along with a whole bunch of paranormal critters including Dragons, Dwarves, Elves, Orcs, Cockatrices and spirits. Well in 2011 a dragon popped out of Mt. Fuji in Japan and pretty much blew everyone’s minds. Humans began to “goblinzie” into Elves and Dwarves along with Trolls and Orcs. People started to be able to use actual magic and the whole world changed.  Pretty fragging crazy drek right?

Players play the roles of the titular Shadowrunner. These men and women are shadow soldiers or deniable assets that the megacorps use to run their secret wars within the shadows of the world. Spell slinging Mages, cybered up Street Samurai, vehicle and drone controlling Riggers, magically enhanced martial powerhouses called Physical Adepts, traditional Matrix Hackers or any combination thereof are hired in secret to do shadow ops for the rich and powerful. It’s a strange mix of Tolkien and Gibson that makes up one of the most unique and engaging game settings of all time.

Now let’s move on to the review.

The layout of this over 400 page tome was pretty damn fine. I had some issues with running down some rules that are cited but not completely explained without going through the sidebars. The sidebars are key to getting everything down, so don’t skip them. They are crucial. The index is well assembled and quite thorough. This game has a lot of tables and they did a pretty good job of assembling them in an appendix, but I am looking forward to some kind of screen. The art is fantastic as per usual, but the fiction was a little lackluster in my opinion. Mind you that’s just my opinion.

Character creation goes back to a new version of the priorities system some veterans might recognize. Stats, Skills, Metatype (orc, elf, human etc.), Magic and resources are listed. You apply a priority A-E to each category.  The closer to A the more your character has access to within that category. So if you want a character with a lot of skills you would put skills as your A priority. If you want to buy a lot of gear you would put Resources as your A priority and so on.

I always loved the priority system. It made for balanced characters and far less math than the point buy system which dominated previous editions. There were some good spreadsheet programs that made it a little easier, but I never really enjoyed making a character with the point buy system. The up side to the point buy is that you could scale the power level up and down, but 5th gives some options for making a Prime Runner by adjusting the resources priority a bit. The character gen system does give the player a pool of Karma to play with so that characters get that little finishing touch that makes them unique as well. Upping that Karma pool would also aid in making a Prime Runner and restricting it will also render more street level characters.

The main difference in this edition is that along with the Metatype priority the player gets a pool of points to spend freely on Edge, Magic and Resonance as well as giving the player access to all or a few of the Metatypes available. Nice touch that. Every priority has something important to offer so making a character has to be honed on concept or simply an exercise in compromise.

This is totally my opinion but based on the way the mechanics work in SR5 I find that giving Attributes a low priority can severely limit the characters ability to function. The reason for this is a new element called Limits ironically enough.

Limits provide a ceiling on the amount of Hits a character can get with certain actions. There are Physical, Mental and Social limits and all skills fall under one of these umbrellas. Therefore, even if you have a super wiz Agility and low Reaction and Body scores you can be severely hindered by your Limit since all these stats make up your Limit for combat skills. This is actually a pretty good way to stay on top of min/maxing and forces players to make more well-rounded and balanced characters.

I remember making a character back in the Combat Pool days (sorry no more Combat Pool just like 4th). I would labor to make sure that my stats didn’t limit my Combat Pool too much since it commanded the ebb and flow of combat. Now you have three stat balances to manage and sinking some stats can really mess you up. Especially if you want to sink Charisma and have a lot of Cyberware since Charisma and Essence make up the formula for Social caps. You better have a good face in your team chummer because Shooty McChopnkill will probably blow the whole deal with Mr. Johnson since he/she is capped at two hits for any social skill like Negotiation and Etiquette even if he/she has a skill of 13 (the absolute max cap now). If you spend an Edge of course Limits go away to make sure that you aren’t completely jacked all the time. These are not the only Limits in the game though.

Gear can provide Limits as well. Your Cyberdeck or your Pistol also impose Limits. For example a pistol might have an Accuracy of 4 which means that you are capped at 4 Hits while firing that weapon. Thus all weapons have a finite amount of damage they can do outside of Edge expenditure. That’s kind of a nag for me since one of the things I loved about Shadowrun is that someone with a lot of skill can outright kill somebody with a knife. Not so much anymore. SR at one point had one of the most elegant and easy to use damage systems ever created. Power Level, Lethality and Staging were a set of simple stats that comprised damage, stopping power and armor penetration in a one roll no fuss manner. I really miss that a lot, but I digress. Otherwise there is only one more real significant change to combat in 5th and that’s Interrupt Actions.

Initiative runs on the familiar highest roll goes first with the lowest going last. Then subtract 10 from that score and go for a second pass until everyone is at 0. Interrupt actions work defensively. You can subtract 5 or 10 points from your initiative to take defensive actions, spending your initiative points as a form of currency, 5 points to evade a single attack or 10 points to go on full defense for the turn. This gives you bonus dice on your defense rolls (everything is an opposed roll). This looks very interesting and quite tactical. I can’t wait to try it out.

As a side note about initiative, you can spend an Edge to bring yourself up to the top of the initiative order, which seems like a cheap way to get multiple passes when you need them. All you have to do is have one runner with a hot drek initiative score and a bunch of unaltered chummers with a lot of Edge. I might be reading this wrong, but that’s what it looked like to me. Edge seems to be super powerful to me and a “Better Lucky than Good” character can go a long way in one session.

Magic works very similarly to 4th edition with very little variance other than the basic mechanical changes listed above. Magic in 4th was pretty simple, compared to past editions and I don’t blame them for not fixing what isn’t broken.

Hacking on the other hand wooooo. They did a number on this and it’s one of the things that has me smiling ear to ear on 5th. Cyberdecks are back. They are now the hotshot illegal Commlinks that Hacker (now Deckers again) use to ply their trade. These devices now have stats which work as Limits. Attack, Sleaze, Data Processing and Firewall are now the basic Cyberdecks stats. Commlinks have the Data Processing and Firewall stats but not Attack and Sleaze which govern most of the “illicit” actions a Decker can do. Each machine has an Array which represents four priorities of activity on the ‘Deck. High end machines will have a 9/8/7/6 Array. It’s up to the Decker to assign one of those values to each of the ‘Decks four stats. These then become the Limits on programs and activities launched under that statistic. You can shift these numbers around on the fly as well when the situation changes.

There is a simple method for tracking how much attention you have attracted while you are running in the Matrix as well based on the Hits rolled against you on opposed rolls with a finite threshold you can reach before attracting the attention of the demiGODs (Grid Overwatch Division). Very streamlined and with the addition of AR make running alongside Deckers extremely easy. Programs and actions are easy to comprehend. Skills and Hardware are key for Decking since most of your Limits come from your gear and not your stats. This is great for players that want to play a character that is mostly cerebral and bookwormish. Not quite the case for the Technomancer.

The Technomancer rules work well alongside the regular Hacking rules with clear delineations between Resonance actions and Matrix actions. This new “class” for lack of a better word is a great mix between Magic and Decking as far as mechanics and the rules seemed pretty simple to comprehend. I have to say I have never played one, but it piqued my interest on my read through of 5th.

The last thing I want to comment on is the Random Run Generator. This is a one sheet set of random events that can make a Run on the fly. It’s very simple and rudimentary, but when used by a GM with a good imagination it can be all you need to sit down and run a game in minutes. Quite a neat little add-on that I thought was worth a mention.

Overall, this is a very good edition of a venerable game. The only complaints I really have are probably due to the nostalgic memories of an old man. For a game that is over 25 years old it really holds its own against anything on the market today. It may be a little rules heavy for some, but I find the complexity fluid and constructive for the setting and narrative.