Hit the Clans Back
Written: Feb 22 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Over 50 new Mech designs, full color glossy pages, background for the game
Cons: Limited availablity
The Bottom Line: If you are playing during the time period of the Cease Fire, this is a must to own. A good resource work for any game involving the Clans
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| BlackBear's Full Review: Battletech Technical Readout 3055 Books |
When the Clans invaded the Inner Sphere in 3049, the combined efforts of only four of the 20 Clans not only captured, but held almost one quarter of the explored area around Terra. The Clans ruled with an iron fist, never giving ground and defeating all who attempted to reclaim the captured worlds. In certain rare cases, when the Clan invaders were successfully defeated and a planet was liberated, the retreating Clan took every single man, woman and child with them, to include the natives.
The Battle of Tukayyid halted the invasion as suddenly as it began, leaving an uneasy peace. The terms of the battle were simple: Defeat the ComGuard units who held the planet and the Clans would be given free access to attempt to take Terra itself. Lose and the Clans would have to stay on the rimward side of the planet for at least 15 years.
The true purpose of this so-called treaty was to buy the Inner Sphere rulers the time to redesign their own Mechs, using both long lost knowledge, new research and stolen Clan technology. In the year 3055, the first of these all new Mechs began to be fielded against Clan raiders and in various battles between the Successor States themselves.
Like most of the Technical Readouts, this one is pretty dry reading. There aren't really any new rules for the BattleTech game, just new chasis to use when putting a unit together for gameplay. The best thing about the Readouts is that you don't have to do all the calculations to get the tonnage correct. Each of these designs are complete with the correct amount of armor, weapons, heat sinks and other components. This makes things easy for the players who want to just jump into a game with standard Mechs. On the other hand, having all these specs at your fingertips also makes it very easy to modify the Mech by removing such-and-such weapon and replacing it with this-other weapon for whatever reason (doesn't require ammo, generates less heat, weighs more or less, frees up critical slots so that a larger engine can be put in, etc.)
Unlike most of the Readouts I have seen prior to this, this one also has several pages of full color glossy pictures of the Mechs as they would be painted for battle. Almost all the other Readouts have mere drawings of the Mechs. The color pages are a great bonus to the book.
There are over 50 Mechs detailed in this volume, to include the first OmniMechs that were ever designed by the Inner Sphere. Of course, there are the Clan OmniMechs as well, although there isn't really that much information on the Clan designs. Like the previous Readouts, this one is written as if ComStar itself had gathered the information and compiled it into a wide spread press release. As far as the game play stuff is concerned, all of the data needed to play any of the Mechs or AeroSpace fighters is there just as it should be.
About the only thing I didn't like about this volume was the fact that no new AeroSpace assets for the Inner Sphere were included. Of course, only Mechs and stratigies were concentrated on at first, so that actually makes sense. Still, it would have been nice to see at least one or two new designs.
Most players of the BattleTech game tend to play in the "current" time period, which would be around 3065, but that doesn't make this book any less valuable to the game. After all, Mechs are passed down through families for generations, so it would not be unheard of for a pilot to be sporting a Mech that was built back in 3025 or earlier. Granted, such an old model would have many of the original systems replaced with newer or better equipment, or even less powerful components because the knowledge to repair the old equipment has been lost during the centuries of warfare.
I feel that this is an excellent addition to any BattleTech RPG collection.
Recommended:
Yes
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BlackBear
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Member: Joseph Black Bear
Location: Kansas City, Kansas
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