Battletech, anyone?

[AcroRay]

I did a search to see if anyone has mentioned Battletech here, and nothing popped up. Sooo....

I played Battletech a lot back in the late 1980s, shortly after it changed it's name from "Battledroids" following a lawsuit from Lucasfilm, and before another lawsuit forced original creators FASA them to remove all the Japanese anime mecha designs they appropriated for their core collection of mechs. My Battletech was the "Unseen" era, full of the Real Type mecha originated in DOUGRAM, MACROSS, CRUSHER JOE that they're not allowed to use anymore. In the years since I last put any lead miniatures on the map boards of my old second edition boxed set, there have been a lot of changes and additions to the line, but nothing really interested me as much as what I played in my college years, when we even held tournaments at our student union building.

Is anyone else around here an old-school Battletech fan? Anyone remember Ral Partha's lead minis? Or little plastic Japanese models repainted in all manner of exotic camo? Or that killer, classic box image?

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

Weird topic.... but yeah; we played that game TO DEATH around here. We built a city in scale with 5"-8" model robots and used those. We kinda stopped once they got into the Clans, and after Mekton came out.

Don C.

[SlipperyLilSuckers]

I have never heard of it but it looks like fun!

[AcroRay]

I had the first edition of MEKTON (actually, the second, I think) and it seems to me it predated Battletech. Later Mekton really expanded into a huge system.

I never got into the whole Battletech Clans thing, and was never even very much interested in any of the back story of the Battletech universe (Classic TRAVELLER was my Sci-Fi RPG of choice.). My main interest was just the mecha pounding away at each other in various environments!

What I was really looking for back in the day was a giant robot game that played rather simplistically like SJG's OGRE, and Battletech really fit that bill.

CTC - do you still have any of your old rules or miniatures?

Photo from a Battletech tournament we held back in College:

[AcroRay]

One of my favorite aspects of the line was how it incorporated the fairly large number of nice, small-scale plastic kits of the core mecha by Takara, Imai/Arii and Nichimo. I used to have a pile of those, but sold off most of them. Many were re-issued in recent years - especially the Macross stuff - but many of the others are much more difficult to find.

Last year dollar-store knockoffs of the 1/170 and 1/200 Macross kits that had been used in early Battletech popped up on eBay. I stocked up on a few of them. Just various Valkyrie variants, no Destroids.

[ctc]

>I had the first edition of MEKTON (actually, the second, I think) and it seems to me it predated Battletech.

BattleDROIDS was first. It became BattleTECH pretty early on.... within a year or so. Second edition Mekton is called “Mekton 2.” We played that one too. That system became the RTG Cyberpunk rules.

>Later Mekton really expanded into a huge system.

Well.... they did a THIRD edition (“Mekton Zeta”) and a bunch of different, and unconnected settings for it.

>What I was really looking for back in the day was a giant robot game that played rather simplistically

Mekton was pretty good. Most of the ones that were done were cut from the Battletech cloth though.

>CTC - do you still have any of your old rules or miniatures?

TONS! I just finished a set of modular scenery not too long ago.

>One of my favorite aspects of the line was how it incorporated the fairly large number of nice, small-scale plastic kits of the core mecha by Takara, Imai/Arii and Nichimo. I used to have a pile of those, but sold off most of them.

The irony was; around here the originals were cheap and INSANELY plentiful before. Then Robotech came out and they all became collector’s items. EXPENSIVE collector’s items. One of the reason we made the bigger scale city was ‘cos the bigger kits were so common.

I parted with a bunch of ‘em years ago (still have about 300+) and have been fighting the urge to re-amass the 1/100 Macross kits. (I got a diorama set for cheap a couple months back, and still had a couple of the rare ones.)

Many were re-issued in recent years - especially the Macross stuff - but many of the others are much more difficult to find.

>Last year dollar-store knockoffs of the 1/170 and 1/200 Macross kits that had been used in early Battletech popped up on eBay.

HAW! They even use the same box art!

Don C.