So, about month ago, we had some friends over for dinner and I showed him Battletech. My friend was amazed (his wife, less so) that he hadn't seen this before, and asked if I'd be willing to run a game if he got a few people together. Of course, I said I would and we finally played that game last Friday night. I planned to do a Grinder for a couple reasons, it would allow people to easily come and go, and it encourages aggressive play.
My friend said that he thought only 3 or 4 people would show up, although he had invited more. So I planned for a grinder with a max of 6 people. I picked out my best paint jobs from each weight class, and then chose versions of those mechs that weren't too complicated, and slightly balanced these with various changes to P/G skills. By the time I was heading south on Friday, I have to admit to being a little nervous about the whole thing. Setting up a grinder for experienced people to play is about as easy as it gets, but training 4 or 5 new people to play all at once would be a new experience.
When I got to my friend's house, 2 more people were already there, and by the time I got the game setup and ready to go we had 6 people total. I explained the basics (phases, movement, etc), but didn't spend much time as I know it's best to learn by doing. We got right into it, and I helped each person resolve fire as we went. These guys were pretty excited, each time they'd come up with a question I was able to explain how the rules covered that and they were all in agreement that this was an amazing game!
By the time we finished turn 1, two more people had arrived and I assigned them medium mechs for the beginning of turn 2. I had only planned for 6 mechs in each round, so some guys were going to end up skipping weight-classes, but that was fine because it was going to go slow with so many newbies. I wasn’t worried about running out of mechs.
At this point, my friend was adding an extension to his dining room table (which was already large) so that we could fit everyone around it. I asked the guys if they wanted to add an additional map-sheet, explaining that with 8 people on only two maps it would be tight quarters with lots of destruction, or we could play on three maps and have a little more room to run. They chose to keep it on two maps.
We did one more turn with me helping resolve fire for each person individually, and then after that a few guys had really caught on and we started moving along quicker, with them just asking questions when needed. I think the most fun was when these guys would come up with something to do, and then ask if it was possible, often with much unintended consequences.
For instance, the guy running a Stinger (which was the only mech on the board with jumpjets, at the time), asked what would happen if he jumped into the same hex as another guy’s mech. I explained that this was called a DFA, or “Death from Above†attack and was perfectly legal. I also explained that this would give him a chance to cause damage to the other guy’s cockpit/pilot. He attempted it, and succeeded, but was disappointed when the damage went to his opponent’s right torso. Then I explained how displacement works on a successful DFA, and since the target mech was up against the map edge, he was pushed off and “destroyedâ€. This was greeted with much enthusiasm by everyone.
In another case, everyone was excited to see the results of a DFA against a mech that was on a hill, with another mech directly behind it, and a 3-level drop behind that one. The attack failed, but I let the player running the target mech know that he got to choose which hex to move his into, so of course he chose the occupied hex directly behind him and forced the other mech to fall off the cliff. Good times.
I spent the first part of the game running my Toro, engaged in combat with a Mongoose that I lost initiative to on EVERY TURN! I explained that my opponent should definitely stay at 1-hex range on every turn since all my weapons had a minimum range, and he did, so there wasn’t much I could do about it. I did finally maneuver into the back of a pristine Griffin, where I blew out the whole torso with a PPC and ammo explosion, so at least I got something done with that Toro before it died. It was fun to finally get to run the thing though.
At one point, a guy left, but another had shown up to take his place; and yet another person stopped by for a few minutes to check it out, but couldn’t stay. He definitely wanted in on the next game though. I ended up teaching 8 people to play Battletech, and honestly it seemed like they all enjoyed it thoroughly and were discussing when I could run another game. Some guys wanted to know how to get started (IntroBox!). Seeing first-hand how well the game is received by newbies made me wonder why it's not even more popular than it is, and I just don't know what the answer is. Maybe it was the lack of a starter box that included minis for so long, or maybe it's because it can be very difficult to learn without an experienced person present to show you the ropes. Regardless, it was good to see new people enjoying this game as much as I do!
