Classic Battletech Techmanual [ハードカバー]

I will give a brief overview of the Classic Battletech TechManual product. Just for full disclosure- I play tested the material in this product.

The TechManual contains rules for construction of units for use with the Classic Battletech game line. Basically the first half of the book deals with the rules for construction of various units like BattleMechs, vehicles, Battle Armor, etc. Each different type of unit receives its own section for basic construction with a chart of weapons and equipment usable for each unit listed in the second half of the book. The second half of the book deals mainly with background information on the weapons/equipment, costs, Battle Value (BV) and stats for all the weapons and equipment. Throughout the book, a sidebar lets you know what section you are in.

I suspect that TechManual will appeal mainly to those who have had a lot of time playing Battletech and are looking to design units which best suit their own style of play. The units, technology and rules in this book apply to those found in the core Classic Battletech Total Warfare book which is used in official tournaments. More advanced units, technology and rules can be found in the Classic Battletech Tactical Operations book which is not typically used in official tournaments.

I would caution those who are used to just designing `Mechs and vehicles, especially with just 3025 Inner Sphere technology, as the sheer amount of rules in the TechManual has a tendency to overwhelm. The official errata for this book (and others) from the Classic Battletech game line can be found at www.ClassicBattletech.com website. I highly recommend buying the TechManual. I hope this book provides countless, enjoyable hours of fun for you !!!

I have purchased a number of Catalyst published CBT products in the past few months and with one minor exception I have been surprisingly impressed with the overall quality of their products.

For an old Battletech hound like myself TechManual is an odd duck; simply put, in the past these rules were consolidated into other products.

1) If you wanted to know how to build mechs, tanks, or infantry go to the compendium.

2) If you want Aerospace or Dropships, well at one point you could do the compendium, but then they forked that product line and moved those to Aerospace 2 iirc.

3) I left the game before Protomechs were created and the only BattleArmor around were Toads; I don't see construction rules for them in my copies of the compendium or the BMR so I'm assuming they were in a separate product.

Additionally, as we all well know, FASA really liked to put individual products into non-consolidated sourcebooks. This as some may remember, lead to those wonderful times where building a unit would often require flipping through 2-3 books.

With all that in mind it is obviously very nice to see a compendium of unit construction rules like this one. You can find construction rules for every major type of unit used in Battltech as well as detailed descriptions of equipment, armor types, engines, etc.

I particularly enjoyed some of the fiction sections as they are informative and entertaining. The fiction section on Battle Armor, I found to be very entertaining for some reason. It also filled me in on a few details about those units that I had either forgotten or just did not know.

The presentation was great and the actual rules included were substantial. In both cases Catalyst has gone above and beyond what we used to get from the old crew at FASA. Their hardcover supplements simply look great, and the rules included have evolved over the past 25 years. The team at Catalyst has done a great job in shepherding this process, they genuinely care about this game, and it clearly shows.

I do have a few minor gripes; one of which is the length to which it seems they've gone to remove rules included in Total Warfare from this volume. I had a similar gripe about the rules in TechManual that were obviously omitted from Total Warfare. Specifically the equipment section in this book has zero information on actual gameplay rules about the equipment, outside of weight and crit slot requirements. I can easily see myself having to flip between the equipment sections of both this and Total Warfare to build a unit properly. That seems a bit silly. I would not have minded paying $5 more if some of that game data was included here. Regardless of it's possible redundancy.

All in all I think this is another incredible product from the Catalyst team. If you enjoyed FASA produced Battletech supplements, and haven't checked out the the Catalyst product line yet, you are simply missing out.

This might be $40 (retail), but it is worth it. A selection of level-3 rules from Maximum Tech has been streamlined into the tournament-approved rules, like XL gyros, Light/Heavy ferro-fibrous armor, and heavy jump jets. It is the ultimate new edition of the BattleTech Compendium! The stuff is so bountiful, they they had to split it into two books! 'Total Warfare' for play rules and 'TechManual' for design rules. There are so many options its so cool. And it isn't all that convoluted. All the legacy rule-concepts are left intact, but newer areas such as support vehicles and protomechs follow more realistic rules.