Mechwarrior Dark Age - A Classic Game Commentary

[@bloodmoonoutfitters]

I bought a ton of it off eBay. I’ve been playing with my cousin and getting some other friends interested in it. It’s a fun game and the basic rules of the game are easy to teach to people who are new to miniature stuff. I also like that it doesn’t take 3-4 hours to play a game

[@Krix6426]

@@JesusLovesAllForHeIsTrue Try Battletech Alpha Strike.

[@ophiuchus3252]

I was a kid when Dark Age came out, and the local game shop owner was a big supporter of it. However, he and the other guys that ran it, forced faction purity. To help out with faction purity, many of the older players would contribute all the extra units they didn't need to a local shop pool. Any time a kid or new player wanted to get into the game, you would get a bunch of free stuff for whatever faction you wanted. He would also give you a discount on a bundle of boosters. The tournaments at the shop had a great turn out for the games life cycle. The owner split the groupings into Greens (8-11), Veterans (12-15), and Elites (16+). I'd say the biggest impact of Dark Age, at least at my game shop, was that it was an easy and accessible access to the Battletech Universe. Many of my friends and I, that played Dark Age as a Kid and Teenager, now have fully invested in Battletech and have dumped a lot of money into the Kickstarter. Reflecting on the game itself, I definitely see a lot of balancing issues and flaws (especially with CNC battle armor, those things were busted in a swarm, or the Clan Wolf Thor that had like 18inch range and wasn't a unique, or Jack Nightstalker able to make blocking terrain vanish for a player) but I overall have fond memories of the scene and the game, and like I said it introduced a lot of us to the Battletech Universe and got us hooked on the lore and Classic game.

[@RockoRobotics]

It's good to know that game helped players get into an incredible universe.

[@noneyadamnbusiness6891]

to be fair, faction purity was part of the official tournament rules for Wizkidz, only non faction mechs you could use were Merc units and if you did use those, when they released the faction cards, you could use them, but merc units didn't count towards it. The only way you could cross faction was using a hybrid faction card and announcing it at tourney start or you were using "allies" basically factions that worked together. I.E. Republic/Highlanders which tended to change per set release or more permanent versions like Federated Suns/Swordsworn or Nova Cats/Shadow Cats which were splinter and parent factions. Admittedly even that was convuluted since even for the first few sets of AOD you couldn't use Steel Wolves and Wolf together still because they were still infighting in the books (which the plot of the game over time followed). I used to be a battle master, most tournament games, even local, they would send instructions for many tournament games with special conditions as well. The rules in the book were pretty convoluted, but they had a website that errata'd the hell out of them and they were for the most part pretty concise a few sets in. Of course that means every week for a while something changed and I would have to keep what would be practically a book of printed pages with me every tournament.

[@tnh723]

hello Jason. tens of thousands of players worldwide playing sanctioned and supported matches weekly, sometimes bi-weekly, countless new and lifelong friends made, people reading the fiction, keeping the game alive. for more than a decade. its power creep and set retirement were its greatest flaws. but the 1 hour battles using 10000 points and 10 orders were meaty and satisfying using company-sized armies. was honored to be the battlemaster of a very active venue here in the Philippines. we had about 20 guys who met up and played games more than 2x a week to have fun and get good. all ages man. we also hung out to talk about the old and new books. 1988 tabletopper here. when my brother and I and childhood friends were 11 years old. warts and all, clix was there and it was good. subbed!

[@andrewsmithphoto]

I loved this game as a teenager, but it had balance issues that got worse over time. Additionally, I always felt random "collectables" were a bad way to go for a strategy game. but the click base was a great way to play a game in a fast easy to lear way.

[@mr.gunzaku437]

I love the miniatures for this game. They're some of the best, pre-painted minis I've ever seen. I still have a few left sitting on the shelf right now👍

[@VashPlissken45]

This was a great video seeing as my brothers & I have recently tried to get into Dark Age from Ebay grabs. Thanks man!

[@suportm782]

Have always loved the Battletech/Mechwarrior universe! Fantastic commentary and love your models! Thanks for sharing! 👍 We follow you now, and hope to be friends!! 😊💖

[@fredrickheinecke3640]

This game was a good entry for new players

[@RockoRobotics]

That is a fair point I did not fully consider. It probably did serve as a good platform to expand to miniatures hobby. Now that I think about it, it was fairly common to have young players, under the age of 13, to be competing in local tournaments where I live.

[@GnarledStaff]

@@RockoRobotics My brother introduced me to this game and its the reason I know what a game shop is.

[@RockoRobotics]

@@GnarledStaff Hopefully that started an awesome journey into a new hobby.

[@benjaminstorace6699]

But would buying lots off of ebay for cheap be good source of minis to rebase for the standard hex game system? I ask because I see these lots of 40 minis for $40 or so and think it sounds good, but. . . .

[@RockoRobotics]

The MechWarrior Dark Age miniatures are a lot larger than standard Battletech minis and would not fit on normal hex map. Of course, if you scaled up the size of the hexes or used them as is for Alpha Strike, they could work.

[@PaulGaither]

You can play Alpha Strike with the Clix figures. All of the stats you need are on the base, and the ranges are easily converted. 0-6" is the same "short range" for Alpha Strike. 8"-10"= medium range 12"-14"= long range weapons. Simple. Minim ranges can also be applied. Any 2" minimum can mean you cannot fire the weapon at short range (0-6) and a 4" minimum could mean that you cannot use it in the medium range of 6-24, or another optional rule could mean you can use it inside the maximum printed range: meaning, if your weapon says 4"-14" on the dial, then in Alpha Strike, the weapon can be used between 14"-42". Easy.

[@RockoRobotics]

In the system you describe, do you just use the Clix Dials for damage tracking instead of the normal Alpha Strike cards?

[@PaulGaither]

@@RockoRobotics - Yes. Solving the speed:range ratio by simply doing a direct conversion, we solve one of the single most important flaws of the Clix game you mentioned in the video. The other big issues you correctly mentioned is the turn sequence. Even WizKids would eventually publish "Solaris VII" rules which are pretty much simplified Classic Battletech or Alpha Strike rules. The change the turn order from Dark Age & Age of Destruction into the more traditional: Initiative phase Special order phase (Death from above/charge declaration) Movement phase Combat phase Clean up phase • Heat resolution • Damage resolution This, however, asks the next obvious question: If everyone can move and shoot each turn, then what use are Mechs & why are they gaining so much heat when infantry and vehicles don't? You can still keep order tokens in the game. However, the order token applies to any activation in the entire round and the unit has to take an entire round off to clear order tokens, just like in the original game. However, they can at least move and shoot in a single round, which was another correct flaw you identified.

[@PaulGaither]

@@RockoRobotics - An alternate range conversion is also the simple 1:3 ratio. The 14" maximum range in the clix game is supposed to be the length of LRMs and so forth, which is a perfect 1:3 ratio to the 42" maximum range of Alpha Strike. As a result, all printed minimum and maximum ranges can be calculated with a simple three times multiplication. If you wish to apply to +2 and +4 difficulty to hit for medium and long ranges, then you can also apply the rules for combined fire, where an allied unit can be activated and replace their normal attack by granting a +2 for each helping unit up to a maximum of 4 helpers (+8) so long as those units are also in range and have line of sight. Let's just say, there is a lot of fun that can be hand with your old collection of clix figures... or you could sell them all to me ;) I love Bannsons Raiders and all of the factions to be honest.

[@PaulGaither]

They are cheap, but very difficult to find. I am always looking to buy up collections because I loved this game and using my own house rules and love army building.

[@ctrouble2309]

What were your house rules?

[@aldi404]

@@nateg.6187 The house always wins 🙂

[@PaulGaither]

​@@ctrouble2309Sorry for the late reply. Going as far back as the release of the game, I had developed house rules in layers: Layer 1 - You may target opposing units up to double the printed range on the dial. Targeting an opposing units outside your maximum range but within 2x the maximum range results in an additional +2 to the target's defense. Note: WizKids would eventually make this a real thing as a special ability of a pilot in a later release. I adjusted that character to not suffer the defense penalty. At my house, we had (and I also have in my own house) a 6'x4' dining room table, so we play with the option to target units up to 3x away (like the maximum range in Alpha Strike) at an additional +2 defense for a total of +4. This made the game far more about ranged combat than the normal rules and units. In the vanilla game, you can place a unit outside the 14" max range of a unit armed with LRMs and in one turn resolve a run order with an ICE mech and be in base contact (or at least inside the minimum range) without having been shot at. Layer 2 - Turn order: Initiative Phase > Special attacks declared (if any) > Move Phase > Combat Phase > Clean-up phase. This removed orders per turn. Each unit with "Command" adds +2 to your initiative roles each round instead. Winning initiative means you declare last - an advantage knowing what your opponent has declared first and being able to react to it. This would also later be adopted by WizKids when they released Solaris VII rules years later. I again beat them to the punch as far back as 2002. This is also the turn order for Alpha Strike. This sped up game play immensely. The core game is stationary: "move OR shoot". This rule change made it mobile and truly about maneuvering. There was still pushing, and you still track orders you give. We would play with pushing damage removed, which also came true for HeroClix. Being forced to "clear" a pushed unit (losing a turn for non-mechs) was punishment enough. Layer 3 - Adopting Alpha Strike rules. This layer was added later.

[@kevinowens8707]

On the end of the game... I was a referee (Wizkids called us the Battlemasters, lol) and so I was really involved in my local scene. When set retirement was announced, we lost a few players who were really mad that their favorite pieces were going to be out of sanctioned play, but when I really took stock of the ones who quit what I found was that most of them hadn't bought a booster from the store in months. Our game shop had a make a purchase to use the space rule, and usually these guys would show up and come over to look at the prizes for the evening. If they didn't want it or think it would sale on eBay, they would usually just leave. If they wanted to play they would head over to the snack bar and grab a Snickers and a Coke to satisfy the purchase requirement. Then they would pull out their same old army and pretty much always run the same game, over and over and over. Those were the guys who quit, and once I had gotten a few new people to join the group, I really didn't miss them at all. What nobody talks about with set retirement is that if you are going to have a game where you have new generations of pieces coming out, without retirement you are setting an expiration date on your game right from the start. MWDA was supposed to be the core set followed by 5 expansions. DA was then replaced by Age of Destruction, and then each new expansion would push one of the DA expansions out. Those guys who quit because of set retirement, they never bought anything new from the local store because within a week of the expansion drop the stats for every piece in the game would be on the internet. They would just look through the list, pick the one or two that they wanted up from Troll and Toad or eBay and maybe swap out A piece in their never changing army. Another problem with these players was that they knew the game inside and out, so when a new person might be interested, the normal outcome would be that there would be a couple of kid gloves games against some of the other players, and then they'd get trounced by one of the cheese armies that you couldn't compete against without spending a ton of money a T&T or eBay, decide that getting their crap kicked in wasn't very fun and poof...new person gone. That's not to say that those guys couldn't play in official with WK prize support. Every month I would get a box with four or five sets of prizes. The recommended calendar was: Week 1 Sanctioned play tournament Week 2 Blind Booster, play what you draw Week 3 Scenario or custom rule set from special event Week 4 Open play tournament where ALL pieces from ALL sets could be played Week 5 Players choice by vote This wasn't required, just highly recommended, so there was a little something for everyone. Retirement meant that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. A new player knew that eventually every piece of that unbeatable pack of super soldiers would be relegated to open night, and as more sets came out, the more competitive they could be. But there was trouble on the horizon. A foul wind that no one knew about until it was too late. You see, in the local area of WK headquarters, there were a bunch of players who were really upset about retirement too. The difference was that these players regularly played at events that the WK staff attended. You know the saying that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, well these fools were very, very squeaky. They eventually convinced WK that retirement had been a mistake, so it was rescinded. That day MW was done, the game just didn't know it yet. That announcement came out with the release debut of Wolfstrike. My store bought their normal number of cases, and it sat there gathering dust, because nobody needed to replace anything. Then the anit-retirement guys came back and started running the games with those OP pieces that we had finally gotten rid of and poof, everybody else quit coming because the outcome was always the same. I tried to keep it going, even after prize support ended. I even ended up buying about 85% of the stores Wolfstrike boosters and giving them away for prizes, but WK had already ended the game internally. When the Solaris 7 sets came out, I knew. These were the pieces that were supposed to be in the next planned booster set, repackaged and pushed out to try to recoup their manufacturing costs. Unretirement had tanked Wolfstrike, and a completely failed booster set had ended MW. It was a good run while it lasted though. That was probably a bit more than most people are going to read, but to the best of my knowledge that's essentially how it happened. Some of it is assumption or from secondhand conversations, but most of it is just what I saw in my own local shop. The stuff about what happened in Seattle also came from secondhand sources, but since WK was never a company to communicate with their customers if the news was bad, it does line up with the eventual outcome. If anyone else was in the know and wanted to chime in or make corrections, I'd love to read it. Laters

[@RockoRobotics]

Thanks for the information. That is quite the story. It is problem when tournament players go to a store, but never buy anything there. I wish I had a solution to that one, but I can't come up with it. Also, thanks for the story about the players up by the Wizkids office. I had never heard that version of the end of set retirement before.

[@GnarledStaff]

Man, that faction issue could have been easily solved by making the booster packs faction based.

[@theplasticbarbarian3480]

I used to love this game and still do. That being said I was never a die hard battletech fan. I loved the simplicity and that it didn’t require such a huge time commitment.

[@GusMortis]

I've been sitting on my minis of these for years Now that I'm taking a break from 40k. This game and x wing is going to get some miles on it.

[@tnh723]

Ive been reading 40k lore and books for more than a decade. 80s battletech guy here. in the end, friendships made and the hobby will always remain in one form or another. wishing the 40k boys all the best and Im sure things will work out. I know what its like to love a "dead" game.

[@GusMortis]

@@tnh723 I think most of use are familiar with playing dead games.

[@afortunatezipline]

I played quite a bit of competitive mechwarrior back in the day, running primarily Swordsworn/Davion + the occasional mercenary units. I can mirror your sentiments regarding trading units especially at local stores being difficult, but hilariously the online trade and sale scene was pretty great even for the filler units like the agromechs/contruction mechs, etc. It had its problems, but honestly it was still fun as hell especially if you knew someone with a custom table. Friend of mine who also ran the local game store had a massive sandbox table with custom fabricated environmental set pieces, those along with 1000 point army restrictions and 4+ player games made for some FANTASTIC game nights.

[@TheHeater2121]

The trick is don't pay attention to the faction unless your playing a faction pure force. I seen the different units as different variants of that particular unit type.

[@RockoRobotics]

I suppose that is one way to look at it.

[@haligaz9119]

When I was much younger I was OBSESSED with Mechassault and saw these minis in the shop and had my aunt by me a ton of models. Never actually played as I was too young to really understand anything more complicated than tic-tac-toe, kinda wish I’d kept some of those models, at least for nostalgia’s sake.

[@dennisvogel5982]

This game had so much potential and was asounding how the rules from the classic tabletop got covered with the mage knights click rules. I still think to this day, that the dial bases are genious and think similar bases would be really cool in classic battletech to set up the movement modes and the modfiers for example on the miniature itself. But as you mentioned the loopholes in the rules where pretty bad - the charge being the only way to move and attack felt weird. Most of the time people just did not engage since you had to be the one that runs into the enemys gun range - and after a hit your stats would be bad so you basically lost right there unless you got a charge of . Also the mechs where to expensive points whise if i remember right - all the cool ones where like 280/300 points and then suffered from the mentioned problem that you got shot down so hard that putting a lot of points into one unit was bad - therefore a lot of infantry and hoverbikes and stuff got played. With the second set and the tank drop mechanic there where some tanks that suddenly outgunned everything and they now had a way to move and attack .... so nobody played mechs anymore.... in a game called mechwarrior..... Then of course the collectible aspect that did not really work since there was almost no synergy between units - if you had a tank at 60 cost with 8 attack and one with 7 .... only the one unit was relevant. the other stuff gathered dust and in contrast to cards that you can store pretty easy.... you had tons of unuseable plastic laying around. And also of course the cost. while 10 dollar for 5 prepainted miniatures is fine it gets prohibitiv if you need to buy booster on booster to pray to get the right units. I still ove this game in general because wizkids had the guts to try something new and where pretty creative. The franchise would also work pretty well for this game since the combined arms and tons of units where really cool. Some more tweaks with the rules - more synergy and less filler units and i think this could have been a huge success.

[@NekoValtz]

Being a Heroclix player for 10 years and staring around the endish of this game I had always wondered about it!

[@bratovitpierwszy2617]

I still have so many of this stuff to go to the right hands...

[@D00MerJohn]

Three things killed MWDA, first as you pointed out the set retirement. Coupled with adding so many factions they had to start skipping a few in each new expansion. Lastly, they started to really cut down on the prizes for events. During the initial launch they had like 3 or 4 prizes per event. Usually you might see multiple runs of that event at your venue, meaning if you wanted one of the prizes odds are you could either win it or trade for it. In later expansions it got cut way down, often with main prizes being vehicles and far less in frequency instead of mechs. This discouraged people from re-playing the same events.

[@chrisgraham1554]

I got hundreds of these for pennies on ebay and just rebased them for alpha strike and destiny, yes the scales all over the place but pre painted mech on cheap bases for a very low price and you are good to go.

[@magicalminis597]

My group of High School friends in the late 80s never got into BattleTech because none of us could paint pewter miniatures sculps that looked pretty awful. Plus BattleTech at the time looked a lot like RoboTech which added confusion to an already huge universe, too enormous to get into as a game. When FASA died MWDA appeared and was something new. Small enough to get into and the story mystery of the Hyperpulse generators going down was interesting. plus the miniatures were painted. I read all the MWDA books. Finally reading Bonfire of Worlds 11 years after it was published. I still have a box of the DA minis. My favorite is Anastasia Kerensky in her Ryoken 2 miniature.

[@RockoRobotics]

I'm not sure if know the history of Battletech miniatures from the 80's, but the reason they looked like Robotech was because many of them were actual Robotech designs. If you like legal cases, check out the story of the "Unseen Mechs".

[@gary9346]

Will always love Dark Age. Excellent game and a lot of fun.

[@johnashley-smith4987]

Thanks for this video. I never played this but I did get into Age of Destruction, just about the time it died! I got a number of the Solaris 7 expansion sets as well, which played on hex maps of all things! I got a few of my freinds into it as none of us really had the time to build and paint armies for games like 40k etc, though we all had 2nd edition armies. The Age of Destruction game was perfect for us at the time, though there were defenitely issues with the ruleset. There's still a couple things that I can't quite figure...anyway, we played a simplified version since we never used the infantry in even one of dozens of games, though we we did use some of the tanks a couple times. Eventually, we ended up painting custom schemes on our favorite models, to tie our forces together. These were certainly fun to paint. The random booster thing was annoying but appealed to the gambler in me! I don't really want to think too hard how much I spent on boosters! Overall...this was a good idea , but poorly executed. More effort should have gone into the ruleset for sure. Being able to buy what you wanted would have helped as well. I have recently been drawn back into Battletech with the new Catalyst iteration of this classic game. When I was in my late tens, it was migraine inducing! But now that I'm a bit older, I feel ready to revisit classic Battletech without inducing migraines, and enjoy blasting my opponent's mechs apart, peice by peice...in a leisurely fashion! On the subject of using the " click scale " models on larger hex bases, and using them for classic Battletech, there is a hex based terrain system produced by GHQ micro armour that would work beautifully. Thanks again for this video, I may go look at the bins full of Mechwarrior AoD stuff I have stashed away and revisit some night with my Gaslands group!

[@JerryBarker-d1f]

I owe MechWarrior a lot. My dad took me to an LGS when I was in 6th or 7th grade cause I wanted Yugioh cards. Nobody was playing Yugioh, Hero Clix was huge there, and my dad was drawn to Dark Age, which was pretty new at the time. It was simple enough for me to grasp early, and the tactile dial really hooked me. I borrowed a few of my dad's junk units (there was a Cougar in that list) and I won my first tournament with that rag tag force. I really loved and succeeded at Dark Age in those years, and could show up and do well or win in tournaments at several LGS's every weekend. Then they did the set retirement (wasn't there a pamphlet they put out changing all the color coding on the dial? And it nerfed everything that wasn't in the brand new set?) and it killed the game. Suddenly nobody was playing this thing wed invested in and I was pretty good at. I am only this year at 33 getting into 40k, even though I've been drawn to it for 20 years, because I've always been afraid that same sort of thing would happen again. Some friend showed me 40k is a little more robust than that, but it took a long time, it had a big impact on a 14 year old. But Dark Age is what brought me into this world of D&D and 40k and everything else, so credit where it is due.

[@vykryl65]

I still my clickytech armies. My local store opened boxes and sold units by the piece, along with sealed boosters. 6 of us in my group, so an army for each right from the start. We bought everything for awhile. I tried to get 8 of each infantry for an army, 4 of each vehicle, 2 of each mech. Dont get to play much now that we all have famies

[@darkrulerbob]

dark age was great. i loved it. it got me into the battletech lore.

[@gary9346]

You and me both

[@jkabee]

I Miss this game. It wasn’t the game mechanics itself. That were so awesome but the fact that the minis were pre-painted and had the click dial system. In my opinion, the click dial system needs to be more available for other game types.

[@spamuraigranatabru1149]

I would love to have an army of one type of mech/vehicle in this game. The vehicles espesually catch my imagination. The action these things can do as a figure is amazing!

[@j.b.macadam6516]

Our gaming group has been playing MechWarrior for over 15 years! It is one of our favorite 'beer and pretzels' sci-fi tabletop miniatures games. MechWarrior is inexpensive, has cool miniatures, requires no painting, has easy rules, is quick to play, is fun and has lots of options. In my opinion, it beats the hell out of Warhammer 40K, which is expensive, requires painting, has extensive rules, requires lots of time and effort, and needs to be updated (new rules and codex investment) every few years!

[@RockoRobotics]

I never considered that stable rules caused by a game being out of production would be a selling feature, but sure. If that works, then great. Do you still play with the original Age of Destruction rules or have you added any house rules to the game?

[@j.b.macadam6516]

@@RockoRobotics Yes, we do play Age of Destruction with a couple of house rules. Plays great! Lots of fun! I'm too old for complex, all day games such as Warhammer 40K. We also play Steve Jackson's Ogre. Easy rules, quick play!

[@GnarledStaff]

Man, I miss this game so much. I was too young/poor to invest much in it when it was still in stores. I also wish I knew about hex maps back then because measuring with a measuring tape was terrible.

[@jonathonbang3186]

Got apx 400 units on the shelf downstairs.

[@MrKronos1986]

Donde puedo conseguir las reglas para este juego. Tengo muchas minis pero ya no recuerdo todas. Gracias

[@RockoRobotics]

Check out this website: www.warrenborn.com/Rules.html They have the rules from Age of Destruction and onward.

[@RockoRobotics]

Also, based on a quick Internet search, I don’t think there ever was an official Spanish version of the rules. There were some fan translations back in the day, but those websites no longer exist.

[@RogerODell]

I had gotten into this game after Age of destruction. The blind boosters didn't really both me that much. I won various mechs in tournaments and also won a factory set of Fire for Effect at Wizard World Texas one year. I know the game had its issues, but it didn't stop us from enjoying it. I played faction pure once I had more and when the Rasalhague Dominion set came out, various people I played with didn't want the faction, so I ended up with all but 2 figures. I loved that faction and had zero issues playing them, even with their weird dials. I have considered creating my own ruleset and putting it out for everyone. Including a set of rules for missions with AI controlled units. I am defiantly looking into Alpha strike as well. I still need to get some of the new figures that have come out, so the pieces I have will work for now.

[@RockoRobotics]

An AI system for a miniatures game would be interesting. Let me know if you end up putting that together.

[@MWImmortalking]

I got into the franchise through the first Mechassault game and MechWarrior Dark Age. Love playing Battletech but back when i was 12 I liked Dark age's prebuilt/prepainted aspect and the approachable rulebook compared to the multiple books of Warhammer 40k rules. Around '07 I started getting into Battletech and while i didnt end up painting any mechs until now 15 years later, I love the battletech rules system andn it honestly is a much better rules set.

[@edwardliu111]

Aren't these miniatures the wrong size for alpha strike?

[@RockoRobotics]

They are quite a bit larger then standard Battletech miniatures, but as long as all players are using these miniatures with the same size bases, the game will work fine.

[@Based_Lord_Humongous]

My Gateway Game. I have the 4th largest collection in the US Southeast, including not one, not two, but 6 Dropships. I've used the minis (on their dials) for everything from generic sci fi gaming to "Big Scale" Alpha Strike/ Battletech... Of course with printer technology now allowing mechs to be printed at 28mm scale, it's more like... "Not Big Scale but Still Big Scale".

[@RockoRobotics]

I’m curious to know how you ended up with six of the dropships?

[@paanjang16]

Have a whole army of various factions. Stopped right when age of destruction came out. There are many things broken in this game i recall: 1) BR Lego 1st turn charge 2) DF 1st turn infiltrating tank destroyer 3) SC Arnis drummund charge monkey 4) SS balac helicopter 5) SS arrow 4 artillery 6) tank drop As time goes by the klix system inherited from MK and HeroKlix is ill suited for mechwarrior unless a major revamp of the rules and system is done.

[@cody1570]

I playrf the shit out of this game as a kid. My biggest beef with it was the mechs were different then the origionals. But either way i made my own faction, painted them and even used the logos from warhammer to make my faction my own. I took my most favorite mechs and ALL the cool helicopters. They were mine.

[@Ayanami0001]

Played the hell out of this game. Good times! I like the original ruling.

[@thejestor9378]

Don't have anyone playing this, but as I am a fan of the dark age mechs, and my local is having more looking into playing battletech, I am thinking of changing some of these over onto hexbases to use in Battletech for dark age era battles.

[@RockoRobotics]

The only challenge with this strategy is that the Dark Ages miniatures are quite a bit larger than Battletech miniatures. Many of the Mechs would not fit in a standard hex map hex. You would either have to use larger hexes or go with a miniatures ruleset for Battletech.

[@thejestor9378]

@@RockoRobotics we are using miniatures ruleset, as we don’t really like the hex map.

[@RockoRobotics]

@@thejestor9378 Excellent. They would probably work great in that case.

[@robertbritt3129]

I enjoyed this game more than mage nights more than anything i loved tournaments special edition models booster packs everything i think we need another game like this besides hero clix boosters are awesome

[@noneyadamnbusiness6891]

what killed the game is they stopped releasing full sets and started releasing mini sets that were stupid expensive. They wanted to focus more on hero clix and the new and (at the time) very hot horror clix. Also, the universe isn't over, the books just moved beyond the dark age years now.. the IS is a very, very different place. now. Hour of the Wolf is the newest.. i think. It is a really good book, as is the mandatory book before it (it is a 2 part series) also, those old clix minis now work very well as stand ins to play classic BattleTech.

[@RockoRobotics]

It is times like this where it would be interesting to see the financial data around the end of MechWarrior. I wonder if the small set expansions were the reason the game died or if they were an attempt to keep a game whose production budget had been slashed alive. Thanks for the Hour of the Wolf suggestion. I’ve been trying to figure out what bridges “ A Bonfire of Worlds” and the new ilKhan Sourcebook.

[@larslaufer301]

Not being able to move and fire was something that confused me a lot. The later addition of half movent and shooting was better but still. I never realy got into this game. Still have some of the mechs because I liked the design but I won't play it again. Gone back to Battletech or its newer ruleset of Alpha Strike.

[@PaulGaither]

Please, for the love all that is good in this world, do not rip your units off their base and customize them. Yes, you can do what you want with your toys, but there are still fans out there like me who love them and are trying to collect them. The more your destroy, the fewer we have, while you can 3D print what you want or buy other ways of getting minis without running these out of print figures.

[@RogerODell]

I actually broke one of my bases try to fix it. I have a pretty large collection of the Game. My issue is a bunch of the dials are stuck so they don't turn anymore. Most are from the newer sets as my older ones turn perfectly. So I now have a Rasalhague Dominion Battlemaster without its base. I am just gonna put it on a hex base.

[@robertbritt3129]

1 guy made a charge army ran though everyone but it was rare...we used balanced or fun armies because we played the tourneys for fun very competative very but nobody wanted to use a broken army "very often" i also won plenty of tourneys against people who purchased pallats to my boxes and boxes to my packs...but this game was not play to win you could take down the expenaive atlas but it made for a good challenge

[@killardan1]

Spirit cats and nova cats!!

[@MWImmortalking]

Mechwarrior Clix died because wizkids died in the '08 recession which unfortunately was right as they were investing big money in big name IP branding for some of their games, Star wars, pirates of the carribean, Halo, etc.

[@RockoRobotics]

That is an interesting idea I didn’t consider. The whole company did collapse around that time.

[@robertbritt3129]

I had a tank i won in a tournament that i loved and used in every battle...sargent something or other i want to say srg. Leo riordan

[@thurin84]

the iteration that almost killed battletech. i used my minis to salvage parts to mod a mini for gaslands. a blind booster buy with tons of crap was never going to fly with battletech fans.

[@KujakuDM]

CGL now does blind box miniatures in B&N. No real booster chaff but the collectors are again ruining the ability fro new players get models.

[@RockoRobotics]

I haven’t been in a B&N for a few years. Are they selling the Salvage Boxes that were part of the Clan Invasion Kickstarter?

[@robertbritt3129]

Its ok to hate the system but there needs to be a physical version on the market for people who love it...admit all vertual games do blind boosters now...ps you had to have heavy junk mechs so you couldnt just feel the pack and say man there is a massive atlas in this pack...ie construction mech right. I would not take back the era for anything. I was in middle school so i could not get enough never got bored. Playedmage nights as well of course.

[@RockoRobotics]

You are correct that there are many video games with blind boosters and I won’t pay for one. If I spend money on a digital asset, I have to know what I am getting. In my head, I had tricks to try and find some of the heavier mechs in the boosters, but I never actually ran tests to see if it worked. Now I want to make a video about this….. Around here, store owners got wise to people trying to cherry pick boosters and would often keep them behind the counter to prevent such things.

[@Joric78]

I stopped playing Battletech in the early '90s and only just started playing it again recently, so I missed this whole development. The blind collectible idea sounds like an abomination. Playing now, I have to say I'm not a fan of the dark age lore or the aesthetics of the mech designs from this period. The only thing worse are the "fantasy monster" designs of some of the protomechs. So far I've basically ignored anything after the Fedcom civil war, although the new Ilclan stuff could possibly change that.

[@RockoRobotics]

The Dark Age setting was not particular popular with most players. It would be an interesting research project to dive into how that part of the Battletech story was created.

[@squizzlor]

Jordan wiseman is such a Clussy Between the dark age and battletech the video game hes shown how little he understands what peoples interest in battletech is…

[@squizzlor]

Jordan wiseman i-s such a clussy Between the dark age and battletech the video game hes shown how little he understands what peoples interest in battletech is…

[@spoilerwarning28]

Had a Jonah Levin Atlas. Thought it was the coolest thing ever. Garbage mech though.

[@RockoRobotics]

Was that the 300 point Atlas that was released as early on in the game? If so, it single handedly broke the tournament scene and forced a change in tournament rules.

[@paanjang16]

I recall the reason it was broken was because in the 300 pt game, all the mech got to do is to kill 1 infantry, then jump into deep water and camp there. Units in deep water units are immune to range combat and this was before artillery. So ya, it was broken as heck.

[@spoilerwarning28]

@@paanjang16 I got him after artillery.