ScrapYard Armory

Strategic Operations is out now in PDF form at least.  For those of you wondering if this new tome is worth the money, I’m providing my humble opinion in this review.  This is a huge book to be sure, so I’ve broken down my comments by section.   Enjoy!

General Rules

The first few sections of the book are devoted to some lesser known yet useful rules covering both the mundane (Moving Cargo) to the hotly requested (Search and Rescue).  While not every gamer will take to every rule, some will be the missing link for gamers looking for a nagging answer to their peculiar gaming quandary.  Yeah, we’ve got a rule for that now…

I am very disappointed in the fatigue, morale, and linked scenario rules.  They are, except for the occasional proof read edit, a direct copy-paste from Combat Operations.  There is no value added in these rules for anyone who already has this FanPro product.  I wish they would have at least provided some additional innovation to make it fresh and unique.  A brief example in the same flavor of those provided in the Starterbooks would have gone a long way.

In order to use these rules, players will have to put pen to paper and patch all of the holes before they fire the first round.  Otherwise, players will find themselves arguing intent of the rules mid game.  There is no faster way to kill the fun in any game when you have to take a station break for rules arbitration.  This has nothing to do with a lack of creativity on the part of the player base in case you were going to suggest.   Beer and pretzels, enough said.

The Linked Scenario rules could have at least had an example to convey the intent of the writers and play testers.  This stuff was play tested right?

Advanced Aerospace

Aerospace combat, the way it was meant to be played.  Strategic Operations ushers in the true embodiment of deep space combat with Warships, Dropships, and Fighter Squadrons.  These rules are a gem and I can’t wait to try them out.  For the Aerospace enthusiast, this section alone is worth the cost of the book or PDF.

I have already commented on some of the advanced rules that were provided as previews.  With the full picture in place, I am now very anxious to get some Warship action on.  I hope more people in the CBT community feel the same.  It is the only way we will be seeing more games promoted by the Demo Team.

Maintenance, Repair, and Salvage

I’m honestly not a huge fan of AccountTech.  That’s why we have the Warchest system after all.  However, I’ve given the rules a good read.  They are about as detailed and complete as we the players are going to get.

Just a little snippet if I may;

It is recommended that players reserve optional rules for situations where each player is responsible for only a small number of units.

Translation: We are not responsible for those who would run an entire company (or more) using these rules.

All through this section there are plenty of good examples that flesh out the rules presentation making it palatable.   Very well done all around.  I might be tempted to run a force using these rules but would probably be more interested in creating a tool to assist in the record keeping instead.  The extra flavor text in the examples make even the most mundane rules, such as those involving the acquisition of replacement parts, fun to read.

Orville fails the Availability Check and swears that next time he buys a new fighter, he’s going to buy Free Worlds League.

Battle Force

BattleForce is a fast play rules system to fight large scale Battletech universe games.  We are talking Battalion versus Battalion for a normal game.  Regiment on Regiment becomes the new long format.

The rules are solid, providing a way for players to integrate every form of Battletech unit in their games.  This includes Warships and Fighter Squadrons by the way.  That recreation of Case White you’ve been thinking about running all of a sudden is looking more and more feasible.

The real kicker that is going to make it easy for players to give the game a try is the included playing counters.  These are available for free from the Strategic Operations product page.  Once again the developers at Catalyst have shown quite a bit of good will to the players.  They have clearly presented a strategic image for the game.  You get a sense from reading the rules the grand scale that BattleForce is.

The included counters are going to make things very easy to get started.  Bravo.

Miniatures Rules

The miniature rules as presented are a straight copy-paste from the free edition available online.  They even reused some of the pictures that debuted in the Battletech Compendium: The Rules of Warfare.  Other pictures were updated, why not all of them? Since this is already provided free, I don’t see the value here.  When the book was pushing the page count, why would they add in these rules that are already provided elsewhere?  Catalyst could have used that space for something new, like a Linked Scenario example or two.

The last quick addition to the book, and seemingly the cherry on the top of a wildly varied sundae of Classic Battletech goodness is the Quick Strike rules.  Essentially, take two parts Miniature rules, one part BattleForce, and a dash of Click-Tech MechWarrior, shake well and serve chilled.  These rules can make an excellent bridge for converting players.  Makes me very glad I already have a healthy selection of MechWarrior figures.

Verdict: BUY

Strategic Operations will be one of the best volumes out of the Core rulebook set.  If you had to choose between Tactical or Strategic Operations, go with Strategic Ops.  I imagine the average Classic Battletech player will find Strategic Operations rules they will use much more frequently than those provided in Tac Ops.

This one was worth the wait despite it’s flaws.  Here’s hoping that Interstellar Operations can bridge the gap to truely large scale warfare in the Inner Sphere.

AeroTech is dead.

In its place, Strategic Operations is promising to be one of the most drastic overhauls in Battletech history.  I’m talking of course about the brand new ECM/ECCM rules preview.

While some may say the ECM/ECCM rules are optional, I disagree.  Glancing at the Strategic Operations table of contents, the entire section dealing with Warships is just “Advanced Aerospace Combat, General Rules”.  If you are playing with Warships, you are playing advanced rules.  There is no checklist in the compiled tables, as in Tactical Operations.

Mark my words.  The who’s who of Classic Battletech Warships will all be using these new rules.  All of them.  Bracketing Fire, Emergency Combat Heading Operations, and Capital Missile Bearings Only included.

Your New Best Friend (in space)

External hard points, page 217 in your Tech Manual.  Hard points come free on all Aerospace fighters.  They are meant to carry various bombs and the occasional TAG.  However, based on some curious non-answers from select developers on the forums, as well as the lack of canon Aerospace fighters fielding ECM/Active Probes, I expect some new hard point mountable equipment in Strategic Ops or perhaps a separate ruling.

Carefully crafted forces with overlapping ECM fields and peppered Active Probes will be the kings of deep space.  Combined arms is going to matter even in space now.

But Who Will Play It?

If they write it, there is no guarantee that very many people will play it unfortunately.  Space battles with Warships and even Aerospace fighters to some degree have always been ignored by the community.  Catalyst does not need people to fall in love with Warships to sell Strategic Ops.  There is always Battleforce and the highly anticipated Repair and Maintenance rules to bring out the wallets of the traditional ground pounders.

Hell, I asked the question at GenCon if there would be additional support for Aerospace battles from either Catalyst or the Demo Teams.  They said no.  Not so bluntly of course, but the meaning was clear.  The developers at Catalyst have no say in what games the Demo team play.

In essence, the success of Aerospace warship battles depends on players like you and I to play it, like it, and demand the same from our local Demo team members.

That’s no slam dunk.  And besides, I’m not totally sold on the potential ECM/ECCM tracking nightmare.  I imagine that the best Aerospace players will be able to go into their own Ikaruga trance and just “see” the ECM field on the table top.  That’s a bit duanting, but then, perhaps we all shouldn’t rush out to replay Case White as our first Aerospace game either.

The Luthien Turning Point e-book is the first of hopefully many PDF only releases by Catalyst Game Labs.  I’ve been looking forward to this series since it was announced at GenCon.  At $5, this offering is very nicely priced.

Luthien begins with a brief but energetic fiction piece that illustrates the sadistic methods of the Word of Blake on Luthien.  I don’t see their tactics as much different than Condition Feral but the presentation is different.  It is obvious who the antagonist is and who the reader should be rooting against in this battle.

The Word of Blake are the New York Yankees of Classic Battletech.  They have all the best technology, the best warriors.  I have two favorite factions now.  The Free Worlds League and whoever is fighting the Word of Blake.

As well as providing a gorgeous planetary map, there are mapsheet tables which describe the appropriate CBT map to use in scenarios or tracks based on the terrain on Luthien.

The Combatants section gives a brief overview of all of the forces fighting on Luthien.  There are twenty two forces in all.  Included for each force is a color unit logo, experience levels, and force abilities to add additional depth to your games.  The force descriptions are geared specifically for generating units to be used in the included Chaos Campaign tracks.

There are six Chaos Campaign tracks, all dealing with specific battles between the feuding Draconis Combine factions with notable interjections by the Word of Blake and Clan forces.

While the tracks are entertaining, they are not as coherent as previous offerings from DotJ and JHS:3070.  The recommended forces are varied and it will take some noodling on the part of a game master to meld them all into a single campaign playable by a single faction.

The tracks also show the continued evolution of the Chaos Campaign system.  We saw one iteration in the Starter book series.  The Luthien tracks remove details of force composition (% deployed by player and % of opposing forces) instead leaving it up to the players to come to an agreement.

Optional track bonuses also introduce some different elements.  Prior examples of optional bonuses dealt more with environmental effects that would work against the player’s attempts to complete his objectives.  There are times when these additions work well and others where I am left confused.  I’ll explain.

Blitz! requires the player to exit one of his units off the opposing force’s home edge before the fourth turn.  Not only does this bonus encourage diverse force construction (Fast ‘Mechs anyone?) but also makes achieving the track objectives more difficult because the player will be removing a portion of his force early on in the battle.  Blitz is an innovative and effective optional bonus.

On the other hand there is Grudge Match, which requires the player to destroy the opposing force’s commander.  This to me is not an optional bonus but another objective all together.  It does not make sense NOT to take this bonus when one or more of the actual objectives involves destroying a significant portion of the opposing force.

While I have my qualms, I am a fan of the Chaos Campaign system and welcome any addition to the mix.

Moving on, we are treated to two unique ‘Mech variants and four warship record sheets using the updated style.  Both ‘Mechs look like beasts containing mixed technology.

Another notable cookie in the Luthien book is the prevalence of Strategic Operations material.  There are exact page references included which leads many to imagine, along with several tweets, that Strategic Ops is very close being out in PDF and soon after our hot little hands.  (Just in time for the Holidays!)

That’s not all.  There is a complete multi-page battleforce map of Luthien, all hexed out and ready for the revised planetary assault rules.  This map will be very useful not only to the Jihad era but also those interested in replaying the Clan assault on Luthien during the Invasion era.

The big question on my mind is whether or not the e-Books will be successful.  I’ve already bought mine, but are the rest of the CBT faithful going to follow suit?  I hope so.  I would love for the Classic Battletech community to send a clear message to the powers that be that this kind of product is a welcome addition.  If the Jihad era books do well, we can expect to recieve additional e-books from different eras.  And that is something to look forward to.