BattleTech: Mercenaries expansion will allow for bigger, faster fights

Catalyst Games revived BattleTech, a tabletop game that dates back almost 40 years. It launched two boxes sets in 2019. It launched later, the 2020 BattleTech tabletop franchise. BattleTech: Clan Invasion boxed set at retail — alongside nearly 100 new plastic BattleMech miniatures. Now Catalyst’s legion of big stompy robots is gearing up for all-out war with BattleTech: MercenariesKickstarter is now accepting pledges for, which will be a boxed item and an updated ruleset. Get ready to fight alongside ground vehicles, flying machines, infantry, and more in the game’s next incarnation. Polygon spoke with Randall Bills, the game’s managing developer to find out more.

BattleTechL. Ross Babcock, Jordan Weisman and L. Ross Babcock created an intricate miniature wargame back in 1984. Later, it evolved to a tabletop-based role-playing video game. This was an immensely popular series and became a favorite destination arcade experience. Bills’ Catalyst took the reins of the tabletop game some years later, relaunching the entire line in 2015. Since 2019, the publisher has sold nearly nine million miniatures — a huge number for anyone other than a company like Games Workshop.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

BattleTech: Mercenaries will expand Catalyst’s line of plastic miniatures even further, but it will do so with a new unified ruleset that emphasizes combined arms warfare — that is, BattleMechs, ground vehicles, air assets, and infantry all working together. Bills claimed that his team had solved two very difficult issues that plagued BattleTech for many years.

“One is that there are ways in which vehicles can start to overshadow BattleMechs,” Bills said. “So we have now taken the non-stars — the secondary guys in the wings — and allowed them to eclipse our stars. And that’s a potential problem [that this new ruleset solves].”

A second problem is that the complexity of previous combined arms rulesets has become too complex. This has led to older versions of BattleTechNon-mech unit games have often taken several hours or even days to complete. Bills claims that this new method speeds up things significantly compared with previous attempts.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

“When you read the fiction, the combined arms is awesome,” Bills said. “If you ever watch the video games, when the ‘mech is running along and just stomps down onto a vehicle as it’s running through, you’re just like Yeah!These are the best moments. So you want the vehicles to be there, and you don’t want them to be completely wimpy, but at the same time you want them to almost accentuate that the BattleMechs are the stars. So it brings a little bit of flavor, almost a buff into your game, but does it in a way that’s quick and it’s easy.”

BattleTech: Mercenaries will cost $75 when it arrives at retail, and include eight new ‘mechs — including fan favorites like the Flea, Firefly, Quickdraw, and the Starslayer. You will receive two Galleon light trucks and two Maxim hover transportations. Additionally, you’ll get the rules necessary to field these vehicles quickly at your table. In the future, more ground-based as well as flying miniatures will become available. Along with the Mercenaries ruleset, players will be able to create vivid campaigns, including fully asymmetrical engagements pitting ‘mechs against non-mech formations. Bills is hopeful that it will help expand BattleTech.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

“There’s a whole new slew of people discovering this and loving it,” Bills said, “But they don’t necessarily want to go further [with micromanaging those smaller units]. That’s already enough for them. So then you do in fact, take all the rest of BattleTech and bring it in, in a modern style.”

Bills stated that his team has been working with the overseas producers to enhance quality and durability for its miniatures. It is important to have fewer mold lines and less warped weapons and arms, as well as easier painting straight out of the box.

“We have simply worked with the manufacturer to get better at that,” Bills said. “The Clan InvasionWe were able to operate at such high speeds and still had the ability to manufacture 100 times. And so I think we’ve just — all of us, including the manufacturer — have just gotten better at making the lines cleaner, the material a little better.”

Kickstarter Campaign for BattleTech: MercenariesFrom now to mid-April, the party will shift to Backerkit where late pledges can be fulfilled and continued. Twitch will host the launch party at 11:00 EST.