Today we’ve got a hot take on the second batch of BattleTech playtest rules. A few weeks ago Catalyst started on a (fairly slow) process of updating some of the less popular and more confusing rules for the next printing of the core rules. The intent here has been to simplify some areas that slow the game down while not causing any significant changes to how it’s played – our reaction so far has been mixed.

Catalyst is releasing the rules in batches that cover specific areas, and you can find each packet (as well as the feedback form to use after running playtest games) here.

Below is the planned schedule for the releases, and we’re on Package 2: Mobility now. This one has a few more changes than in Package 1, but each change is individually smaller.

Package 1: Survivability Rules runs from September 9th until October 13th.

Package 2: Mobility Rules, will go from September 29th to November 10th.

Package 3: Gear from October 27th to December 8th.

Package 4: Missions runs from November 24th to January 5th.

Package 5: Rules for BSPs which currently has no start date but has a projected end alongside Package 4.

While we look at each of these proposed changes, we’re only going to be summarizing the rules – check the playtest package for the full wording.

Proposal 1: Water

This one is pretty straightforward: Reducing the MP costs to enter water, and allowing you to enter at a run or jump. You’re also going to be taking far fewer PSRs while moving through water.

Jack: I like this one a lot. Maps with a lot of water were completely useless for most games, and it better tracks with fluff that described walking long distances underwater. Having a PSR to enter water at a run provides some interesting play choices – either you take a bit of risk to move through quickly, or slowly but safely.

Liberty: This makes being in water actively not suck which I like. Also makes quads, like my beloved Xanthos 4O, even funnier as now they can hide their many legs underwater all the easier! Long live the biggest of dogs!!!

Peri: This means that water is real terrain that you can interact with in any meaningful fashion, which is great. Depth 1 and below water might as well just be impassable in 90% of games as the rules exist now.

Proposal 2: Backwards Level Changes

Pulled straight out of Tac Ops, if you’re moving backwards you can go up or down 1 level per hex with a PSR.

Jack: This optional rule is already in common use, and I think it is very good. It gives you a little more choice in movement without rendering hills irrelevant.

Liberty: It’s fine? Peri and I have used it before and it’s really whatever. Adds more stuff to keep track of but I don’t really mind this that much.

Peri: I have a strong personal distaste for backwards level change, purely because I usually don’t use it and so my brain doesn’t account for it when the rule is in use. This is generally known as a skill issue on my part. In practice this isn’t a huge deal or a huge change, just an adjustment to possible movements in some games.

Proposal 3: Immobility

This slightly changes what counts as immobile and removes immobile mechs from initiative order. While they still exist and can shoot, if a mech can’t move it can’t be used as an initiative sink. The notable change to what counts as immobile is that being reduced to 0mp from damage now counts as immobile, while previously it did not.

Jack: Removing immobile mechs from initiative order is great – it never sat right with me to have an immobile mech behind a hill somewhere that would never contribute to the battle but still counted for initiative. It does some of what forced withdrawal tries to do in not having mechs exist past the point of usefulness without being awful.

I think there’s going to be some degree of confusion with the difference between reducing to 0 MP from damage and from heat, where one renders you immobile and the other doesn’t. I fully understand and support why there’s a difference, but still think it may cause confusion.

This does bring up my main concern in this packet, which is that slow mechs may find it too easy to be immobilized, at which point they start taking huge amounts of damage because of the ease of hitting immobile targets. Cheap battle armor to do leg attacks become a lot more useful.

Liberty: I am happy with half of these changes off the top of my head. The changes to counting immobile ‘Mechs is good as it has always just kinda been ‘I mean yea you get to beat that to death but now I get to look you in the face and go ‘naptime’ to sink initiative’ which has a value all its own. So I’m happy that’s getting snubbed here.

On the other hand I’m not exactly pleased with the change to leg damage and immobility when paired with Proposal 6. Things like 3/5 assaults or heavies now have a really big problem if there are cheap BA on the field that want to bite their ankles which is concerning. While they weren’t fast in the first place an Awesome really shouldn’t be a hip hit and an actuator hit away from forced immobility.  Or god forbid a 2/3 like the urbie or annie just a hip hit away from immobility. 

The bads keep getting worse.

Also, I see nothing about a minimum movement rules change here so I getting reduced to 0MP from leg damage, even if it is just a hip and the other leg is perfectly fine in the case of say an Urbanmech or Annihilator, just ‘LOL, LMAO Even’s your movement permanently.

That’s kinda annoying.

Peri: Urbanmechs now getting punted into the core of the earth by leg crits is funny as hell. Initiative sinking with an unconscious mech is lame and weird and it is good that that is going away. The primary concern I have is one shared with both Jack and Liberty; cheap BA leg attacker stocks are up. That said, BA is really insanely good and high value if used correctly already, and this might be the change that makes them into proper staple units. 

Proposal 4: Gyro Damage

Very straightforward here, the PSR modifier from gyro damage is reduced from +3 to +2.

Jack: I think this is good, an early gyro crit was crippling. With this change mechs will retain a lot more mobility (though still not as much as if they were undamaged), giving you slower degradation of capability rather than a relatively common quick death spiral.

Liberty: Gyro crits are currently in the mega-obliteration zone of debilitating so knocking that down a touch is probably pretty good. This plus proposal 9 helps quite a lot to keep ‘Mechs that would currently be turbo-fucked by an early TAC to the Gyro will now be able to actually do something after that. Even if not terribly effectively whenever they get a PSR forced on them.

Peri: Turn one Gyro TACs are insanely crippling and annoying, and a Gyro crit might as well say “Stay on the floor where you belong, trash” at +3. Changing it to +2 means that your mech still probably falls over on the turn you take the crit, but your odds of getting back up and getting to play the game are much higher now. Great change.

Proposal 5: Foot Crits

The PSR modifier and automatic PSR are removed from taking a foot crit. You still reduce movement speed and can take a PSR from jumping, but simply taking the actuator damage won’t cause a PSR.

Jack: This feels like probably the most minor change. I don’t really think it’ll have any impact on game play, and mostly just differentiates it slightly from leg actuator crits.

Liberty: This is fine but I don’t know why it needs done? I feel like the bottom of your mechanical leg being funky after getting broken makes sense and probably doesn’t make for a very good reactive surface to work with for balance and whatnot but who am I to say that? An engineer? 

I mean, yes, I am, but that’s besides the point I guess.

Still, popping the actuator will end up messing with your movement at least so sure, whatever. At least it still does something and having one slot in 4, or 6, not fuck you over in the legs is probably fine.

Peri: This is just fucking weird. This is another thing you need to track and another thing you need to remember as an exception. It is bizarre to me that instead of simplifying things down into one single system they are instead adding another special case here. Very, very weird. Won’t have a huge impact in most games but is just deeply confusing.

Proposal 6: Hip Crits

One of the two complicated changes here (which mirrors how complicated dealing with hip crits are in the current rules), hip damage no longer cares about timing and whether other actuator damage occurred before or after the hip crit. Walk MP is cut in half, with a minimum loss of 2 MP, and it ignores all other MP loss from actuator damage in that leg. Hip crits also no longer override PSR modifiers from other actuator damage to the leg, so you can ultimately now have a harder PSR to make if you got unlucky and had every actuator damaged.

Jack: Getting rid of the timing concerns on hip crits is a huge win for playing the game. It was always incredibly annoying to have to track whether a leg actuator crit occurred before or after the hip crit, and it was the only spot I’m aware of that you can’t track the actual state of a mech purely by reading the record sheet, as you can have different results from the same damage. I’m less of a fan of the minimum 2 MP loss per hip crit. While it does make sense, as you don’t want it to be exactly the same as taking a leg actuator crit, it makes it pretty easy to immobilize a 3/5 and a 2/3 (like an urbanmech) will be immobilized with a single hip crit. I don’t care about the urbie and if I never saw another one in game I’d be happy, but I am worried about assault mechs getting immobilized while they still have lots of armor, and then the -4 to hit them makes them evaporate.

Liberty: See my complaints in the immobility section. This is a very large buff to cheap BA that can make leg attacks. Any fast ‘mech can be a delivery method for a squad of IS Standard Magnetics, dump them off next to a slow backliner and he will never get away from them or will spend all of the remainder of the game running for his fucking life not to get his ankles broken. 

Peri: Tracking the exact timing of leg crits was one of those things that rarely actually came up but was always insanely annoying to keep track of. That change is great, but I am not a huge fan of the -2 MP minimum loss, for reasons mentioned above. If 3/5 or 2/3 mechs don’t get compensated for this with a significant BV decrease they are going to get shoved out of viability pretty hard. Particularly with the side arc changes from the last playtest being horrifyingly punishing to 3/5 assault mechs.

Proposal 7: Cumulative Leg PSRs

The other relatively complicated change, this is reducing how many PSRs you need to take at once. Previously, losing multiple actuators in a leg in a single phase would cause multiple PSRs, while now they’re all combined into one PSR (with the modifier from all of them combined). This also applies when jumping, so jumping with a damaged foot and upper leg actuator doesn’t cause you to take 2 PSRs. Damage in different legs doesn’t stack, so if those actuator damages were in different legs you’d still be taking 2 PSRs.

Jack: Another good way to simplify and speed up the game, reducing the potential pile of PSRs down to 1 is something I’m totally in favor of. It does make it a little easier to stay on your feet, which I think is good – the game is more interesting when mechs keep moving around and occasionally fall over, rather than falling all the time and thus being in fairly static positions.

Liberty: I never really had a problem with the multiple failures generating more rolls as it kinda made sense to me but I can see the appeal of it. Having a leg get absolutely savaged as it has progressive failures felt on brand to me but making it just be one at the end for simplicity’s sake is… fine, I guess.

Peri: This is a good rule for usability and will reduce the amount of time that mechs spend on the ground. In practice taking more than one leg crit just put you on the ground instantly in most games, making 3 PSRs at +3 from, say, 20 damage and 2 leg crits, was more or less going to put you on the ground no matter what due to you only needing to fail once. I like this change.

Proposal 8: Leg Destruction

Leg destruction is made a little less crippling and more like what you’d see in most video games – it falls, has walking MP cut in half, and has a +4 modifier to PSRs. While still a lot of damage, it leaves you with a somewhat more functional mech than one with 1 MP and a +5 modifier.

Jack: I could go either way on this. A lot of players have come from either HBS BattleTech or MW5/MWO where losing a leg still leaves you with a functional mech, and this feels more like that. You’ve got a reasonable chance to stay on your feet, and can move more than barely shuffling, so much like the gyro damage change I think this is going to cause mechs to have slower degradation rather than a quick death spiral once one bad thing happens.

Liberty: This is fine enough, losing a leg was already just about out of the fight so giving ‘Mechs a touch more durability is probably fine. Really making it so they can function, even at half MP, after they get back up is the big thing for me. 

Peri: Losing a leg is insanely crippling in game as is and this makes them far less fucked up. You are still absolutely crippled, but this keeps a mech from having to spend the rest of the game as a turret flopping around on the ground.

Proposal 9: Standing PSRs

Ending on a simple change, standing up is now a -1 modifier to the PSR rather than +0. It leaves you a little less likely to have a mech that is just perpetually falling over.

Jack: I lean towards being a fan of this, though after testing could go either way. It makes it very reliable to stand back up with an undamaged mech, particularly if you’ve improved piloting skill at all. As funny as it is, I’m not a big fan of a mech repeatedly failing to stand and just bonking itself on the head to death. It’s a bunch of things all on one player to resolve, plus spending MP repeatedly to stand creates turret-tech. This change isn’t making it any easier to avoid falling in the first place, so actuator or gyro damage will still put you on the ground, but I think being able to stand back up and keep participating is good.

Liberty: I’m good with this. I’ve seen, and had, ‘Mechs trapped in the eternal tumble-dry setting that is just eating shit continuously when trying to get up so this is probably a good change to help keep that from ruining your plans for the turn. A bigger fan of this than most of the others as I think the movement phase is an incredibly critical time to have your plans pan out right for positioning so having an easier time executing is probably good.

Peri: Anything that makes the 3 stooges routine of a mech failing 3 stand ups in the same turn less likely is good. This is a great change for the general experience of playing the game. No one wants to watch their centerpiece bludgeon itself to death after it tripped on a bit of rubble.

Final Thoughts

Jack: Overall I’m a fan of these changes. I think we’re going to end up with mechs that degrade a little more slowly rather than having one gyro/actuator hit cripple them, which makes for more fun games. It also gives you a new role for cheap battle armor, where doing leg attacks to attempt immobilization is a viable tactic. I’m a little concerned that it’s too viable a tactic against slow mechs. I already think they’re not in a great place currently, and especially playtest packet 1 is punishing to slow stuff, so I’m concerned that they’ll get disproportionately hurt here.

One of my favorite changes is probably the water change, as there are lots of maps with a river on them that were of very limited use with how hard crossing it was – making those maps more usable opens up a lot of variety for my games.

Liberty: These are fine, I guess? None of them really shout out to me as something I’ve always felt like should or shouldn’t be a thing so it’s just kinda eh. Not a fan of screwing slow ‘mechs over even harder than they already are by being slow. Kinda feel like there should be a floor to how slow you can go while still having at least one actuator, even if it is just 1/2. I don’t really see a reason to forcibly apply immobile here but we’ll just have to see how it pans out in testing I suppose!

Peri: These changes are generally a net positive for the game, things will stand up more, make fewer PSRs to fall over when they get TAC’d, and gyro crits aren’t basically instantly game ruining. I share the concerns about cheap BA leg attacks because that is already an insanely strong strategy against slow targets and this is going to make that sort of play far stronger and far easier to pull off. 3/5 is a terrible movement profile without any of the new rules, but with the side arc changes from the last pack and the amount of negative movement you can now stack on them with a single lucky roll from a 200 BV squad of BA they might get completely pushed out of viability. That is my main concern and I second Liberty on the fact that you should have a minimum at 1/2 movement if you are not missing a leg, going to immobile from a single unlucky leg crit is going to be unreasonably punishing when it happens. 

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