Jack of Harts

I ran a BattleTech Classic and BattleTech Alpha Strike demo this weekend at a local convention. I’ve been doing Alpha Strike demos for years now, and was possibly the first Demo Agent to start demoing it under its original name back when I was a Demo Agent. It really is a quicker and easier way to play BattleTech. As I said back then, “this is the future of BattleTech.” And the movement and TMM mechanics are one of the big reasons for this. This weekend was the first time I’ve demoed Classic in years. It’s been over a decade since I’ve taught new gamers on Classic, and it was the movement and TMM that confused the gamers more than anything else. The idea that MP allowed you to move, but what counted for movement was actual hexes traveled, that you then converted to TMM was the single biggest hangup new gamers had. Over and over again. Many, many new gamers. It was the single biggest mindjob they had. Obviously I’m going to have to come up with a new way to explain since it was such a recurring issue. It is just an interesting take to take away from a convention. While many of us may consider Alpha Strike’s movement and TMM mechanics too simple and too abstract, I’m now firmly in the camp of considering them to be far superior mechanics when it comes to introducing new players to the game. And we HAVE to consider introducing new players to the game if the game is going to survive.