BattleTech Alpha Strike

[Frostie]

Has anyone here played BattleTech Alpha Strike?

I have always loved he idea of the game and Alpha Strike appears to make it more open and something I could introduce my 9 year old son too

[Pijlie]

I wrote a comparative review to be found here:

https://pijlieblog.blogspot.com/2019/03/battletech-classic-modern-classic-or.html

[Frostie]

I wrote a comparative review to be found here:

https://pijlieblog.blogspot.com/2019/03/battletech-classic-modern-classic-or.html

Thanks I will take a look

[racm32]

I have played a bit of both. I was actually taught how to play classic BattleTech by my friends 9 year old son who was running the "beginners" table that day. He had been playing for some time with his dad though. After playing both I think any 9 year old, with an interest, could pick up Alpha Strike or Classic.

[Frostie]

cheers,

I like the review as well Pijlie

[pixelgeek]

Has anyone here played BattleTech Alpha Strike?

Me! Love it. Great way to play company level games.

A lance each might work for younger kids

[Cat]

Yes, and love it!  This is the fast-play version that BattleTech needed 25 years ago.  It got me to dust of my mechs and finish building up my inner-sphere battalions for each house.

Lance v. lance games are nice short 45-60min affairs and you can play a couple in a gaming session.  Company v. company is fine for a longer battle, and battalions are great for multi-player convention games.

[beefcake]

Is Alpha still available to purchase? I've got the Kickstarter box inbound some time next year and kind of fancy having some quick rules too.

[Cat]

Is Alpha still available to purchase? I've got the Kickstarter box inbound some time next year and kind of fancy having some quick rules too.

There was a reprint of Commander's Edition last year, which appears to be sold out again now directly at Catalyst.  You might still be able to add it to the KS while the pledge manager is still open, I think that was on the mighty menu of add-ons.
 
Miniature Market has some in stock at the moment:
https://www.miniaturemarket.com/cat35680.html

[pixelgeek]

There was a reprint of Commander's Edition last year, which appears to be sold out again now directly at Catalyst.  You might still be able to add it to the KS while the pledge manager is still open, I think that was on the mighty menu of add-ons.

The Pledge Manager closed yesterday.

The PDF is still available from Catalyst

[beefcake]

The Pledge Manager closed yesterday.

The PDF is still available from Catalyst

Awesome. PDF is all I'm after. Cheers, I'll have a look.

[Manchu]

Death From Above Wargaming made a very well-produced series of How To Play videos for Alpha Strike. Here are the links:

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[pixelgeek]

Death From Above Wargaming made a very well-produced series of How To Play videos for Alpha Strike.

The gameplay videos they have produced use their own houserules though and are not as good

[Manchu]

Yeah, DFA clearly labels vids that use houserules as such so there should be no confusion.

But let’s unpack what “houserules” means in this case: Alpha Strike Commander Edition comes with a healthy amount of optional rules to give the base line game more depth. So “houserules” should not be interpreted here as somehow “against” the intent of the game. The design philosophy of Alpha Strike is about flexibility to begin with, allowing players to dial in or out the amount of crunchiness they want (especially in relation to how much one wants Alpha Strike to resemble CBT).

What the DFA guys want is something a bit closer to CBT than basic Alpha Strike so they use some optional rules from Commander Edition, having further modified some of those along the way. One example would be rolling attacks separately. Another would be changing the movement/range scales.

Having played the most basic version of Alpha Strike back when first edition came out, I have to say it was very boring to me. It was like Baby’s First Miniatures Game. Maybe that is okay if you want to put dozens of mechs on the table at once. I much prefer the way DFA have developed Commander Edition for their purposes.

[pixelgeek]

Maybe that is okay if you want to put dozens of mechs on the table at once. I much prefer the way DFA have developed Commander Edition for their purposes.

AS does have a lot of optional rules. They even use a few of them. What they have done is changed the movement rates and ground scale. They also use a dice rolling mechanic that tends to skew the results of their rolls. So they slow down the rate of movement but then they spend the first few turns of every game I have seen sprinting to get into contact. They play the game to get around the primary change they made. Its quite illogical.

I suspect, but have no evidence, is that they dislike playing on maps and so have CBT scale games in terrain using the AS rules. They haven't, AFAIK, used the lance building rules in AS at all.

It just seems really weird to play a game aimed at company level engagements and then just use a lance a side.