Top Ten Reasons why I love Battletech

10)
Westernized giant fighting robots in camouflage: stand-ins for 80ies style US-military-industrial-complex hardware discussions AND liberal dissemination of mayhem. It does what Twilight:2000 also did, but much much more playable. Also: no discussions between your recon sniper, door gunner and deer hunter friends about how sharpshooting REALLY works.

9)
Thirty Years War written large, in many, many aspects.

8)
It’s Traveller’s little brother. Like Pokémon to MtG. Or MtG to Poker.

7)
The Lyran Commonwealth, the only time I have seen Americans understand modern (or 80ies) Germany: federalism = rampant, economy = good, engineering = good, military = bad.

6)
Jumpships & Dropships. Even harder SF than 2300!

5)
Articulation points for your own creations. No community around a large metaplot and novelized franchise has a stronger tendency for what-if and alternate universe creations by their members.

4)
Few detailed planets, but huge metaplot that is more specific than Traveller’s to provide a framework.

3)
Seamless scaling of rules & games. From Man-to-Man combat up to the whole Inner Sphere: there’s a game for it. And if you take the old ones, they actually work in a stunning manner. INCLUDING logistics (take that, Traveller!)

2)
clear boardgame/mini line of tradition makes fudging anathema

#drumroll#

1) lack of modules for Mechwarrior

Tommorrow, we’ll see what there is to hate about Battletech.

To the english Forums!