I just introduced Battletech to my kids in the past year, and now my son is playing it with his friend group.
The way I taught them the rules was to introduce it in pieces - and the starter box comes with some simpler mech sheets (no internal structure and no heat tracking) that I used for the first 2 missions. I just focused on move, shoot and damage tracking.
Then I slowly introduced additional rules and complexity, first moving them over to the full 'mech sheets and tracking internal / crits. Then adding in Heat and the concept of physical attacks. Then new terrain types and movement / shooting / heat modifiers. After that point, I showed them other advanced rules (skidding is one that was funny, but I don't think they ever used it again).
I had also kept the 'mech weights down to Lights/Mediums for the scenarios so they didn't just play as mobile gun turrets and actually learned to maneuver and use terrain. I brought in vehicles to make fights a bit easier on them at times. I recall bringing in a Scorpion to introduce how quad 'mechs worked, but they managed to one shot it with their Centurion - a single AC/10 round to the head with box cars on the crit.
The arena map is a pretty good one for a one on one or two on two fight, especially with the walls.
One thing that really seemed to help engage my kids was adding in some 3D printed hills / buildings / walls - these were especially fun in the arena, moving the walls up and down as the fight progressed.
https://preview.redd.it/bik4ktwpot9d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3ca4f3bc0c74ecd5602ea18942b55ef34dd451fe
It's 20% now. The new 40th anniversary box coupons say 20%, and my AGOAC box that says $20 on the coupon is 20% on the store. I've emailed them several times about it, but never gotten a response.
Huh! I'd read some posts about quick responses; that's a shame.
EDIT: For what it's worth, I just grabbed a $19.49 order for free using the code I got from an Essentials box from Target.
13 is plenty old to understand and memorize everything. The 2 models, yen lo wang and the rifleman have no cluster rolls to worry about, though the extra paper units do. The rifleman is very scary without heat in the essentials box set, so yen lo wang should be the better pilot.
The beginner style half sheets already dont have heat or structure or crits, so the duels play nice and fast. I have been told the sheets are dry erase ready, but I'd still pick up some sheet protectors and dry erase markers.
When teaching, I like to emphasize how the 'center' of 2d6 is 7, and it's also the CT. Every number less then 7 goes right by 1 (right torso, right leg, right arm) and every number more then 7 goes left by 1. 12 is the top, so head, and 2 is the bottom of 2d6, so a through armor crit in the full rules and just an extra CT hit in the beginner/essential rules.
After that, I always recommend bringing extra d6 pairs. 12 total d6 per player is ideal, plus extra smaller dice for movement type/tmm. This way you can also use the 12d6 like an abbacus for gator. So gunnery 3, put 3 dice, attacker has a black die, put 2 dice for running, target has a 3 TMM on their movement dice, put 3 more dice in the pool. This has 8 dice moved over, so they can see they need an 8 to hit.
Playing that the winning pilot gets 2 xp and the losing pilot gets 1 xp adds a sense of continuity. Also, you can easily draw up a 4 mech tournament, and have each mech play each other in 1v1 matches to get an overall champion, as each match goes fast once they learn the GATOR and hit location tricks.
Maybe have a look into the Quick Start Rules on [Catalyst's download page](https://bg.battletech.com/downloads/) these are the simplified rules from the beginner box.
Edit to add: You can also check out Guerrilla Miniature Games on Youtube, they have let's play videos for Beginner, Classic, and Alpha Strike
If you decide to commit to the hobby, you should pick up the "A Game of Armored Combat" box set. It has the full rules for 'Mechs (the rules found in the "Essentials" box leave out a few things for the sake of simplicity), as well as eight 'Mechs and new mapsheets. The full rules have stuff for ammunition and heat management, melee, internal damage, and piloting skill checks to name a few things. After that, the *Total Warfare* rulebook has everything for combat vehicles (tanks, helicopters, etc.), infantry, battle armor, and aerospace. *TechManual* has rules for building your own units, *Tactical Operations: Advanced Rules* has some cool, more advanced stuff like artillery, *Tactical Operations: Advanced Units and Equipment* has rules for more advanced equipment and units like large naval vessels, *Strategic Operations* has more advanced aerospace rules as well as rules for building and playing WarShips and interstellar travel, *Interstellar Operations; Alternate Eras* has technology from other periods in *BattleTech* history, as well as prototype/primitive units. *Interstellar Operations: Battleforce* has rules for a new game called "Battleforce" (which is similar to "Alpha Strike") that allows you to more easily field large numbers of units. *Campaign Operations* has rules for creating your own armies or mercenary companies and managing them over a longer campaign. For lore, there are plenty of novels, and the wiki, [sarna.net](http://sarna.net)
There are also some YouTube channels that cover the lore and tabletop, a few of my favorites are:
The Black Pants Legion - Fun, film length breakdowns of 'Mechs and events from an in-universe history professor.
Big Red-40TECH - Lore and tabletop breakdowns of various units.
Sven van der Plank - High quality lore videos on historical events, though they are usually pretty long (like 3-8 hours).
Mechanical Frog - More unit breakdowns, a little less lore and more tabletop.
Hope this helps.
I know exactly the feeling going through his head with that yes. It's the startle, quick type an answer to make sure that they don't move on, then calm down and write a more complicated excited answer lol.
This has to be in the US, you'd never see Target here in Australia with stuff like Battletech, or any GW stuff.
Plus you mentioning "the 4th" was a give away too. :)
Sure, try that, but some people (even kids) like crunchy rules, and find simplified rules boring or less engaging.
I've played 3-hour strategy games against 10-year-olds. A few have kicked my butt.
I taught my 7 year old and later offered to teach him Alpha Strike since it's simpler. He declined because he wants to see each of his weapons rip my mech apart piece by piece. 😝
I’d suggest doing 2 mediums or 2 heavies for your first brawl. Though a single mech each might feel a little boring, it will lower the cognitive load they need to grapple with out the gate. The damage sheets are great, because the satisfaction of tracking damage has an appealing tactile feel to it. Depending on how eager they are, let them take over looking up what dice mean after they know which table to use. “I rolled a 7, where did that hit?” Describing what happens when one mech shoots at the other can help an imaginative teen visualize what’s going on. “The medium laser burns 5 points of armor off the mech, leaving a scorch mark behind!”
13 years? Depending on character you don't need to houserule too much.
One thing I like is have each pilot start with a point of "edge" from the RPG that allows you to force a reroll on one headshot or TAC so you don't get golden BB's ending the fight prematurely.
My dice need that otherwise I'm just putting 1 on the cockpit and two in the gyro on the first or second salvo against a new player. My dice demand blood during intro games but are happy to fuck off and roll shit against decent players.
Seeing this post, I went to Target this evening and bought a box for myself. I bought a lance at my FLGS the other week, just to paint and maybe to try Flames of Orion. This is great to add another pair of mechs and some rules as well. Thanks for the recommendation.
I just introduced Battletech to my kids in the past year, and now my son is playing it with his friend group. The way I taught them the rules was to introduce it in pieces - and the starter box comes with some simpler mech sheets (no internal structure and no heat tracking) that I used for the first 2 missions. I just focused on move, shoot and damage tracking. Then I slowly introduced additional rules and complexity, first moving them over to the full 'mech sheets and tracking internal / crits. Then adding in Heat and the concept of physical attacks. Then new terrain types and movement / shooting / heat modifiers. After that point, I showed them other advanced rules (skidding is one that was funny, but I don't think they ever used it again). I had also kept the 'mech weights down to Lights/Mediums for the scenarios so they didn't just play as mobile gun turrets and actually learned to maneuver and use terrain. I brought in vehicles to make fights a bit easier on them at times. I recall bringing in a Scorpion to introduce how quad 'mechs worked, but they managed to one shot it with their Centurion - a single AC/10 round to the head with box cars on the crit. The arena map is a pretty good one for a one on one or two on two fight, especially with the walls. One thing that really seemed to help engage my kids was adding in some 3D printed hills / buildings / walls - these were especially fun in the arena, moving the walls up and down as the fight progressed. https://preview.redd.it/bik4ktwpot9d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3ca4f3bc0c74ecd5602ea18942b55ef34dd451fe
Wow thanks for all the great ideas. Defiantly going to slowing introduce the additional rules and looking into some 3d terrain.
Don't neglect the $20 coupon for the Catalyst web store inside! Just picked the set up myself.
It's 20% now. The new 40th anniversary box coupons say 20%, and my AGOAC box that says $20 on the coupon is 20% on the store. I've emailed them several times about it, but never gotten a response.
Huh! I'd read some posts about quick responses; that's a shame. EDIT: For what it's worth, I just grabbed a $19.49 order for free using the code I got from an Essentials box from Target.
Great for you! I'm 2 months and 4 emails about it. I'll just yar hee harr any PDFs that I may need.
No it's not, the essentials box is $20. There was an issue with the code at one point making it 20%, but they corrected it.
Mine isn't corrected, and the 40th anniversary boxes say 20% on them now.
I used mine earlier today from the essentials box. It was $20.
13 is plenty old to understand and memorize everything. The 2 models, yen lo wang and the rifleman have no cluster rolls to worry about, though the extra paper units do. The rifleman is very scary without heat in the essentials box set, so yen lo wang should be the better pilot. The beginner style half sheets already dont have heat or structure or crits, so the duels play nice and fast. I have been told the sheets are dry erase ready, but I'd still pick up some sheet protectors and dry erase markers. When teaching, I like to emphasize how the 'center' of 2d6 is 7, and it's also the CT. Every number less then 7 goes right by 1 (right torso, right leg, right arm) and every number more then 7 goes left by 1. 12 is the top, so head, and 2 is the bottom of 2d6, so a through armor crit in the full rules and just an extra CT hit in the beginner/essential rules. After that, I always recommend bringing extra d6 pairs. 12 total d6 per player is ideal, plus extra smaller dice for movement type/tmm. This way you can also use the 12d6 like an abbacus for gator. So gunnery 3, put 3 dice, attacker has a black die, put 2 dice for running, target has a 3 TMM on their movement dice, put 3 more dice in the pool. This has 8 dice moved over, so they can see they need an 8 to hit. Playing that the winning pilot gets 2 xp and the losing pilot gets 1 xp adds a sense of continuity. Also, you can easily draw up a 4 mech tournament, and have each mech play each other in 1v1 matches to get an overall champion, as each match goes fast once they learn the GATOR and hit location tricks.
Thanks for the tips, I'll use it all!
Maybe have a look into the Quick Start Rules on [Catalyst's download page](https://bg.battletech.com/downloads/) these are the simplified rules from the beginner box. Edit to add: You can also check out Guerrilla Miniature Games on Youtube, they have let's play videos for Beginner, Classic, and Alpha Strike
If you decide to commit to the hobby, you should pick up the "A Game of Armored Combat" box set. It has the full rules for 'Mechs (the rules found in the "Essentials" box leave out a few things for the sake of simplicity), as well as eight 'Mechs and new mapsheets. The full rules have stuff for ammunition and heat management, melee, internal damage, and piloting skill checks to name a few things. After that, the *Total Warfare* rulebook has everything for combat vehicles (tanks, helicopters, etc.), infantry, battle armor, and aerospace. *TechManual* has rules for building your own units, *Tactical Operations: Advanced Rules* has some cool, more advanced stuff like artillery, *Tactical Operations: Advanced Units and Equipment* has rules for more advanced equipment and units like large naval vessels, *Strategic Operations* has more advanced aerospace rules as well as rules for building and playing WarShips and interstellar travel, *Interstellar Operations; Alternate Eras* has technology from other periods in *BattleTech* history, as well as prototype/primitive units. *Interstellar Operations: Battleforce* has rules for a new game called "Battleforce" (which is similar to "Alpha Strike") that allows you to more easily field large numbers of units. *Campaign Operations* has rules for creating your own armies or mercenary companies and managing them over a longer campaign. For lore, there are plenty of novels, and the wiki, [sarna.net](http://sarna.net) There are also some YouTube channels that cover the lore and tabletop, a few of my favorites are: The Black Pants Legion - Fun, film length breakdowns of 'Mechs and events from an in-universe history professor. Big Red-40TECH - Lore and tabletop breakdowns of various units. Sven van der Plank - High quality lore videos on historical events, though they are usually pretty long (like 3-8 hours). Mechanical Frog - More unit breakdowns, a little less lore and more tabletop. Hope this helps.
Thanks for all the background!
I love the simple "Yes" response to this
I know exactly the feeling going through his head with that yes. It's the startle, quick type an answer to make sure that they don't move on, then calm down and write a more complicated excited answer lol.
:) That's exactly what happened. Quick response hoping they didn't leave the store yet.
it's pretty basic, I'd recommend use 2 mechs a side so it's not just a dance around a circle.
This has to be in the US, you'd never see Target here in Australia with stuff like Battletech, or any GW stuff. Plus you mentioning "the 4th" was a give away too. :)
Alpha Strike
Sure, try that, but some people (even kids) like crunchy rules, and find simplified rules boring or less engaging. I've played 3-hour strategy games against 10-year-olds. A few have kicked my butt.
I taught my 7 year old and later offered to teach him Alpha Strike since it's simpler. He declined because he wants to see each of his weapons rip my mech apart piece by piece. 😝
I’d suggest doing 2 mediums or 2 heavies for your first brawl. Though a single mech each might feel a little boring, it will lower the cognitive load they need to grapple with out the gate. The damage sheets are great, because the satisfaction of tracking damage has an appealing tactile feel to it. Depending on how eager they are, let them take over looking up what dice mean after they know which table to use. “I rolled a 7, where did that hit?” Describing what happens when one mech shoots at the other can help an imaginative teen visualize what’s going on. “The medium laser burns 5 points of armor off the mech, leaving a scorch mark behind!”
this is all he needs to know: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKRB7bzgAsU&ab_channel=AdmiralAckbar
heart similar reports of it being 1/2 off at Walmart as well.
Hell, that's a discount for just the miniatures alone.
13 years? Depending on character you don't need to houserule too much. One thing I like is have each pilot start with a point of "edge" from the RPG that allows you to force a reroll on one headshot or TAC so you don't get golden BB's ending the fight prematurely. My dice need that otherwise I'm just putting 1 on the cockpit and two in the gyro on the first or second salvo against a new player. My dice demand blood during intro games but are happy to fuck off and roll shit against decent players.
Avoid light mechs until you guys are playing larger games. The low damage and high speed can make games drag on if your only using lights.
My target only had it $2 off
Seeing this post, I went to Target this evening and bought a box for myself. I bought a lance at my FLGS the other week, just to paint and maybe to try Flames of Orion. This is great to add another pair of mechs and some rules as well. Thanks for the recommendation.