Battletech Dark Age Technical Readout: What's Inside and is it worth it?

Today we dig into the recently released #Battletech Dark Age Technical Readout to see what's inside, what's good and if it's worth your precious hobby dollars.
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#Tabletop #Review #Comstar #WordofBlake #IlClan

[@ophiuchus3252]

Myself and many others at my FLGS all got into the Battletech Universe through the Dark Age Clix game. We had a great community (of mostly teenagers). We were all fine with the blind box format (probably because Pokemon/Yugioh/ Magic booster packs had conditioned us to accept it as the norm). I understand people's dislike for the clix game, but it was fun and easy to pick up, and at least for our local BT community, it brought in a lot of fresh blood. All of us that moved on to play Classic Battletech do look fondly on the Dark Age era, we do acknowledge a lot of its short comings though, as we started to read on the settings deep lore. However, we do ruffle the feathers of a few grognards as we insist on Dark Age era battles and scenarios. Great stuff as always Mechanical Frog, on a side note Ive shared your Slapchop videos with some of our new players/ painters and they have had some great results. Thanks for your work.

[@MechanicalFrog]

Thanks for the unique perspective. I'm glad that the DAClix game was good enough to bring new players into the BT hobby. As I read more, I think my appreciation for the DA era will continue to grow.

[@rotwang2000]

The Clix game had some interesting ideas and kinda made combined arms very useful since it was hard to win with mechs only. In fact until the very end the Mech the classic MVP of the BT universe was a costly liability, there was nothing in game they could do that you couldn't do better for fewer points when using the right mix of tanks and infantry, even workmechs were weighed to outshine regular mechs since you could usually field two workmechs for the point value of a single real battlemech and still have a combat advantage. I had like three or four regulars to play BT, everyone else had an allergy to the classic BT game, but loved the card game or the Clix game. I was notorious for never having pulled a single battlemech, then the Jade Falcon set came out which had only a single workmech so everyone expected the curse to be broken, drew three workmechs, grabbed everything I had and put it up for sale.

[@melvinlemay7366]

Personally I think the way CGL is doing it is the best. Random grab boxes as an option, but in no way a necessity. It to me offers the best of both worlds. If I want The surprise and suspense of a random draw or if want to expand my army but don't know or don't care what I want to expand with I can have that. But, if I want a specific mech, or desire to "collect them all" it's relatively easy to do that with the lance packs.

[@cale42]

There's not enough Industrial Mechs with Medium lasers grafted onto their arms in this book.

[@MechanicalFrog]

Can't please everyone, I suppose.

[@leonasmith6180]

If you do not have a light filter, just use white loo paper over a simple wire mesh, this will stop the light reflection from obscuring any reflective surfaces. Hope this helps Leona.

[@jeffd7976]

Started playing in '89 after my buddy "inherited" his 2 older brothers' mountain of BT/RPG material when they went to the military. We grew up 20mi from the Battletech Center in Chicago. Stopped playing in the late 90s cus life but always kept an ear open. Now that my son is old enough to play the introductory box set I'm like....yeah...Catalyst is getting paid monthly from me. SO awesome that fans like you are out there producing quality content that does the BT universe justice

[@MechanicalFrog]

I'm so glad to hear your story. It's great that the love for BT is being passed on to the next generation.

[@NarcolepticLTD]

I've started digging into the timelines between the clan invasion and ilklan , and a big part of what started to peak my interest were some of the mechs and variants that started whispering to me from master unit list . Although the initial run downs of these eras really sound rushed and haphazard, I'm starting to just roll with it (but eff the whole WoBbles thing).

[@MechanicalFrog]

I think it will eventually be re-visited by CGL and filled in a bit.

[@RobertWilke]

I'm OGBT from the 80's, even played and lost to one of the founders of the game. When I first heard of what has happened to FASA and then sold. I was quite wary of the clix system. I never got into it. More so having to learn a whole new system. Along with what at the time they did to the universe. I dropped all of BT for well over a decade+. Then the HBS game came out and I was blown away by the demos. Now 5K+ hours into Rougetech and I'm BACK Baby! This TRO is a great addition to the lore and getting people who did play back in. Now all I want to do is collect the mini's and play TT again. Thanks

[@MechanicalFrog]

Welcome back then. Happy hunting!

[@jjsheets330]

Your timeline journey through BattleTech sounds just like my own. I was out of it for over two decades and decided to give it another try. I’m glad I did and have been trying to get myself up to speed on all this history I’ve missed during that time.

[@MechanicalFrog]

Lots to sift through and digest.

[@thorshammer8033]

I'm a simple man, been playing since 93. I see content , I subscribe. Have to get this book to add to the pile.

[@MechanicalFrog]

I'll keep working hard to earn the sub. Happy hunting, mechwarrior.

[@flushmastercyclonis186]

4:00 Am I the only one that saw a drill armed mech called the Violator and thought, "Waitasec..."?

[@RandyTandyy]

This Dark Age comes with knights too! What a package deal!

[@layne9027]

I'm relatively new, I've been playing for about 2 years now. After I found Sarna and Flechs sheets I went on a deep dive. Come to find out there's a bunch of dope mechs in dark age and they even had pewter models. I picked up the skinwalker, stormwolf, and crucible. I was really sad to hear that dark age is liked by pretty much Noone.

[@MechanicalFrog]

I think the opinion will change in time as people are conflating the Word of Blake period with the Dark Age. The DA novels were pretty meh, but there is lots of good stuff in there.

[@rotwang2000]

The people who wouldn't touch a BT game with a ten foot pole did get into the Clix game and I bought into it, while they drew an Altas from every third box, I got stuck with nothing but workmechs. Being the resident BT guy I did complain that getting real mechs was getting silly until they released the Jade Falcon set which had only a single workmech, the store owner told me that now i'd have nothing left to complain about, I bought three boxes, and pulled the work mech three times ... Sold everything, never looked back.

[@MechanicalFrog]

I'm not a fan of blind boxes.

[@observationsfromthebunker9639]

Some guys get all the luck, one way or another. I sympathize with you, having had many poor or mediocre pulls. I ordered 'mechs from eBay and traded with people, but it was difficult to obtain aces and veteran units. Didn't help that I was trying to make the perfect Spirit Cats combined force too as per rules as intended. I also quit about the time the Jade Falcons came out, as their force was strong, and would inevitably lead to the lucky pull players winning tournaments no matter what. (I was also already against the Capellans being rescued from their own inherent weakness and the Blakists by writer fiat, again.) I still have my Spirit Cat click army, plus the "good ones" I saved from a storage space purge. if someone wants a DA scenario I'll dig 'em out for representation.

[@rotwang2000]

@@observationsfromthebunker9639 The game really skewed a number of things, even though mechs were present, they were rarely part of any force, why spend a quarter of your points on a mech, when you can get many more useful tanks and VTOLs. And where mechs were concerned, the workmechs were often part of a force, even Clan units had them because a Clan mech was never worth the investment, or at least I never saw them on the table. There were a few games of "mechs vs mechs", but the other players having a very different perspective, tended to fall back on the "better" playing pieces, IE, the cheap, but very effective tanks, air and ground forces. Funny thing is that when I did convince them to do a regular BT game, they almost always said that the game was skewed towards mechs and to them it felt "wrong" ... I understand that they wanted to go back to the early days with jury-rigged mechs and the lesser quality versions making up the bulk of any force, but the pressure to put in the Clan stuff etc put off a bunch of players who looked primarily to the game as they came into it and not so much as the heritage of a classic giant mecha game. They wanted more workmechs and tanks, and fewer flashy Clan stuff or crazy Inner Sphere designs. The result was a game that suffered from split personality, it was set up to be very different from Battletech and beloved because of that, but pressure to put more Battletech in the game also scared off players. I think the group lasted about another half year before they also buried the game. It was fun while it lasted, and it was an interesting idea, but the original, warts and all still being around is a tribute to the strength of the concept.

[@NodDisciple1]

I was glad to see new Industrialmechs.

[@MechanicalFrog]

Yeah they're fun.

[@CraigSteinhoff]

Looks cool and trying to understand the different ages :)

[@shaunhall960]

Along with playing Battletech, I also ran a campaign of MechWarrior back in the day. We had so much fun playing the game. I should pick up the dice again and show these young pilots a thing or two. ;)

[@MechanicalFrog]

I'd love to get into a MW TRPG game.

[@nicolastousignant9160]

I didn't have access to battletech as a kid beyond a few Ral Partha minis, a mechwarrior 2 demo cd and the cartoon a bit later. The dark Age game was my first true foray into battletech. It was fast, easy to play and accessible, i enjoyed it. My only gripe at the time was the scale wasn't consistent and the blind box format was just a hindrance to building a cohesive force.

[@philippauli8162]

Agreed about the Blind Boxes, I got some real klunkers when I all wanted was a solid Mech collection. (I even ended up with a couple of minis broken at unboxing.) At the tale end of the Dark Age game, WizKinds started rolling out faction-specific battle packs which were awesome. Funny how CGL has nailed the format with battle packs for force building and blind boxes as a bonus option. Now...I kinda want some CGL versions of Dark Age mechs. . .

[@MechanicalFrog]

I am not a fan of the blind box sales tactic.

[@philippauli8162]

@@MechanicalFrog Totally fair and it is a money-grubbing gimmick. At the same time though, I've ended up with mechs I'd never buy in a battle pack and it's given me fodder to expand/practice my painting skills.

[@MechanicalFrog]

@@philippauli8162 I have a bit of a puritanical dislike for gambling mechanics in things. That includes selling blind boxes.

[@nicolastousignant9160]

As a person with some susceptibility to the "gotta get them all" collectible games i can say that it was a mistake on their part. Says with magic or pokemon and the other card games, the threshold of "shit! I've gone too far" takes quite a bit to reach. If only because a whole mess of cards doesn't really take that much space. Doesn't matter that you have 357 swamps, out of sight out of mind. But 8 construction mechs, 5 firestarters, and 11 of the logging mechs and they start weigh on the mind. I Stopped buying when i saw that my collection was 90% things i didn't like.

[@observationsfromthebunker9639]

Thanks for the reviewand recommendation. I know the dark Age from the clix game and some of the related novels. Getting some era-relevant material for the updated tabletop game is egood. I'll purchase it sometime in the future.

[@MechanicalFrog]

Glad I can be useful. Happy gaming!

[@thomasrobson6370]

You still have all your books 📚 I don't sucks 😔. I stopped playing about 1997, my group was all Air Force including me everyone except me and back to their home States, so now you no longer had a group to play with. My books disappeared but I've recently been get buying the PDF files should be able to keep track of them a lot better, also it's easier going to the PDF files than physical book 📖.

[@MechanicalFrog]

I wish I still had all my books. Unfortunately a box went missing with gems like my hardback Compendium, 3025 TRO, and others that are pretty irreplaceable.

[@melvinlemay7366]

I'm a new(ish) fan of the setting having gotten into BT about two or three years ago. Personally, I like Dark Age just fine. Is it rough at times? Absolutely, but having almost finished all the novels I can say it's no more so than the invasion or civil war eras. And while it ended... poorly, it did set up IlClan which has so far been in my opinion the best era in terms of writing, tone, etc. since the succession wars. And DA has a bunch of really cool units, people, kit and events besides. From the Capellan Crusades to the Celerity to Bannson's Raiders to tripods and so much more.

[@MechanicalFrog]

I'm warming to it, though I'm still slogging through the lore.

[@chrishotovec4163]

Though I am now not fond of the blind distribution of the clix minis at the time I had many a fun year playing them and still have a small chunk of my collection. Plus IMO the universe fiction in that era was pretty good and I like what they tried to accomplish so I enjoy many stories from the dark age era

[@MechanicalFrog]

Yeah I'm not a fan of blind boxes.

[@mathewkelly9968]

Plenty of goods mechs in this book , useful if you're playing ilClan era

[@MechanicalFrog]

Agreed.

[@billtrent6520]

I feel these book are kind like the Equivalent of owning a Sears catalog for mechwarriors

[@MechanicalFrog]

Not too far off.

[@broccanmacronain457]

Thanks for the review. I think I may pick up this one because like you I gave up on Wizkids battle tech when they bought it and went back to the original so I have no knowledge of the dark ages. Thanks again for the review.

[@MechanicalFrog]

Glad I could help

[@riggermortisfpv526]

I can't believe Im typing this, but I might actually buy the Dark Age book....I freakin hated the clix also.

[@MechanicalFrog]

Heh.

[@cmdrhatchy9611]

I'm gonna assume that we can add books to our Kickstarter. If that is the case, I'll be adding a lot of them.

[@MechanicalFrog]

That would be a good opportunity to fill in some gaps on my shelf.

[@WeOnlyEatSoup]

I know nothing of this era (pretty knew to battle tech in general) but I wanna collect these all just for the lore

[@MechanicalFrog]

They are neat...

[@madcat3525]

I am still a sucession wars and clan invasion person. I have already ordered it.

[@MechanicalFrog]

Good times had by all.

[@daric_]

Thank you for the review. Would you recommend this or the individual TROs for completeness? Thanks!

[@MechanicalFrog]

The individual TROs if you're a completist. The DA TRO is more for a general feel and the popular picks.

[@louiswilkins9624]

Cool

[@MechanicalFrog]

😎

[@BoisegangGaming]

*the Inner Sphere is whole again* *the Inner Sphere is broken again*

[@MechanicalFrog]

It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times.

[@terrinils3165]

Big Red has a video on the Gun coming up soon.

[@MechanicalFrog]

Cool. Looking forward to it.

[@GamingWithADHD]

I have all the TROs, but I'm still on the fence about the "era TROs". This might change my mind though...

[@MechanicalFrog]

I'm happy with them.

[@alanrickett2537]

I have all the TRO 2750 to 3060 and that's all of them.

[@warlok363]

Hey almost pronounced Gun4 right. 4th tone so think "goon" but very short and clipped with a falling tone. But hey better try than Big Red could has managed 😉

[@MechanicalFrog]

I asked around and did my best. I only make mistakes on days that end in Y. 😀

[@Z71Z28]

Would you still recommend the old versions if you have the new ones?

[@MechanicalFrog]

Only if you're a collector.

[@monostripezebras]

Dark Age is just disapointing.

[@MechanicalFrog]

Aww... then thankfully, it's over!