I love Battletech, but I understand why it isn’t for everyone. The crunch of of detailing armor hits and internal effects, and keeping track of heat sinks is all the kind of thing that appeals to a specific kind of numbers nerd.
Yes Alpha Strike exists, but it’s relatively new and I think it exists as this weird thing that by stripping out the details takes away the appeal for the loyal crunchy brained people.
Further, the miniatures are really neat, but 28mm (or 32mm, whatever is happening with 40k scale creep these days) scale really allows people to paint and customize characters which is appealing to more people than relatively less characterful mech sculpts.
Half of it is the sunk cost. Half of it is the Clans. Plus, MW2 and forward have had multiplayer Mercs modes with lance-vs-lance combats. Why would most people want to play on tabletop when that exists?
Admittedly, there is something satisfying about a Jenner with every jet in the world and a single PPC making a jump, cooling down in midair, and landing directly on top of an enemy and doing major structural damage before leaping away.
Battletech should be the king of tabletop wargames. But no, everyone just wants to play 40k because of the sunk cost.
I love Battletech, but I understand why it isn’t for everyone. The crunch of of detailing armor hits and internal effects, and keeping track of heat sinks is all the kind of thing that appeals to a specific kind of numbers nerd.
Yes Alpha Strike exists, but it’s relatively new and I think it exists as this weird thing that by stripping out the details takes away the appeal for the loyal crunchy brained people.
Further, the miniatures are really neat, but 28mm (or 32mm, whatever is happening with 40k scale creep these days) scale really allows people to paint and customize characters which is appealing to more people than relatively less characterful mech sculpts.
Half of it is the sunk cost. Half of it is the Clans. Plus, MW2 and forward have had multiplayer Mercs modes with lance-vs-lance combats. Why would most people want to play on tabletop when that exists?
Admittedly, there is something satisfying about a Jenner with every jet in the world and a single PPC making a jump, cooling down in midair, and landing directly on top of an enemy and doing major structural damage before leaping away.
Because it’s Chess 2.0! Yeah MW is fun but tabletop just does it for me.