FanPro published its own Classic BattleTech TechManual in 2007 with product code 35103 and the same art as the first Catalyst printing.

This means it is very common in Battletech (and seen in all of these products) to have a base model and a variant included for variety (so there is a Griffin N and a Griffin R in A Game of Armoured Combat, even though there is no Griffin miniature as they assume you’ll have one from the Beginner box). Variants, given they normally change the armament, can completely change the battlefield role. If a model goes from having all guns with a max range of 9 to being able to hit things 21 hexes away, then it makes a big difference to performance on the table. Welcome to the BattleTech Master Unit List. Since even before Total Warfarewas first published, it has been our goal to provide BattleTechfans with a comprehensive list of game units and their corresponding Battle Value. We’re taking a look at the three current boxed products (the Beginner Box, A Game of Armored Combat, and Clan Invasion), what’s included in each, and which ones you need to play. Meanwhile, WizKids produced a new Clix-based game in the MechWarrior: Dark Age setting, set almost a century after the current BattleTech timeline.This state of affairs obviously left little room for evolution. Add-on publications for the game soon downplayed the technological decline more and more. Functional factories were mentioned that could even produce new 'Mechs. An early novel, The Price of Glory, culminated in the recovery of an intact Star League era memory core to explain how lost technology was subsequently recovered. This and the Fourth Succession War concluded the earliest storylines.

BattleMechs: A basic premise of BattleTech is the evolution of the BattleMech as a superior war machine. Driven by human pilots with the help of neurohelmets, 'Mechs are gigantic humanoid walking tanks that imitate human movement patterns which makes them easier to control (as they can be used like superlarge battlesuits) and supposedly gives them a significant advantage in mobility and versatility over other vehicles.While a plethora of alien flora and fauna are used to give an exotic feel, sentient Aliens are notably absent from the BattleTech universe (except for an isolated case) and play no significant role. The fiction works on the premise that man is his own worst enemy. This military buildup culminated in a Civil War era draining resources, and then the Jihad era engulfed the BattleTech universe in yet another highly destructive war that essentially reset the technological advances and led to a new Dark Age. The included mech record sheets include an alternate variant for each of the Light, Medium, and Heavy mechs, including the Griffin from the Beginner Box. Unfortunately there’s no included record sheet for the Vindicator, so unless Catalyst puts one online you’ll need the Record Sheets: Succession Wars PDF to be able to use it. The Rules

BattleTech was created by FASA, who held the IP rights to the universe up until they withdrew from the market in 2001. They licensed limited rights to a number of third parties (such as Ral Partha to produce miniatures, publishing houses for comics, and later Roc Books for the novels, among others). The rights to produce computer games were with FASA Interactive, which was eventually sold — including the IP rights to computer games — to Microsoft. In 2001, FASA ceased active operations and the BattleTech IP (minus the computer games license now held by Microsoft) was transferred to WizKids, a new firm owned by FASA cofounder Jordan Weisman. WizKids split the IP, creating Classic BattleTech and MechWarrior: Dark Age as separate brands. I could talk for a long time about 80s wargame design, and to a large extent Battletech is unchanged from when I first played it (though the miniatures are much better). Modern audiences who didn’t grow up when tabletop wargaming was becoming popular don’t remember the growing pains when non-historical wargaming was working out whether it was an rpg combat system with miniatures or a wargame (see also Warhammer Fantasy Battle 1st edition, Rogue Trader, Laser Burn, Chainmail, Star Fleet Battles, etc). Needless to say a lot of these 80s games featured a character sheet mechanic, and Mech Record Sheets are a fixture of Battletech. The BattleTech universe is largely rooted in real-world physics, but some key premises of the universe are science fiction in that they seem to defy the laws of physics as they are currently known. These include superefficient fusion engines that supply vast amounts of power from relatively small and compact devices, starship thrust drives that outperform any currently known thrusters technology, and Kearny-Fuchida Drive technology that allows for faster-than-light travel and communication.

The BattleTech universe in its early stages was heavily influenced by easily recognizable (and intimately familiar) staple concepts from the fantasy genre including The purpose of the product is to give you a taste of playing in the Clan Invasion era, and the models it includes are a force to take on the models in AGoAC. Delete the last paragraph of the main entry (Lift hoists cannot be used to lift...) and after the “Combat” subsection insert the following new subsection: Successors of the self-exiled Star League army, the Clans developed into a culture of genetically engineered superwarriors in deep space and eventually returned to invade the Inner Sphere in 3049. Although they share the same culture, they are heavily factionalized and essentially independent from each other. From the original 20 Clans, only 7 are known to still exist by the Dark Age. Construction rules for the various units presented in Total Warfare can be found in Classic BattleTech TechManual.