"BattleTech Field Manual: 3145" Topic

FM:3145 isn't quite out just yet, but this just went up to help whet one's appetite.

ENEMIES AT THE GATES

It is the year 3145. Only thirteen years have passed since Gray Monday—the day that most of humanity's interstellar communications grid suddenly and mysteriously collapsed. Plunged into darkness and fearing the worst, the leaders and armies of the Inner Sphere scrambled to act, some fearing the approach of invaders, others seeking to exploit the chaos. Now, armies are on the march, war has erupted on every front, and the Republic of the Sphere—once a sign of mankind's hope for a brighter future—has retreated behind its fortress walls to prepare for the inevitable.

Field Manual: 3145 updates the military and political state of the Inner Sphere as it stands in the year 3145. This report includes a brief history and overview of recent developments in the BattleTech universe, as well as current TO&Es for the major 'Mech forces and mercenary commands employed by the realms and Clans of the Dark Age Inner Sphere. Special era-specific rules are also included, enabling players to create characters and forces for use in campaigns set in and after this critical point in BattleTech history.

I cannot wait for the DTF version of this book to hit the shelves!

Shoot the windshield!

Is it me or is that front mech so huge that there are multiple people in that cockpit?

Grimm

From what I gather over in the official BT boards, the centre 'Mech is a Malice, one given something of a makeover compared to its MW:DA/AoD original. Since that chassis is supposedly listed as a 100-tonner, it may have a standard one-person cockpit; though we won't know for sure until the stats are published in the TRO:3145 PDF series.

The Colossal over on the right, however, is designed to be operated by three people at a time.

(The game rules needed to run the Colossi, and other "new" Dark Age toys, should be in FM:3145 itself.)

Grimm, it's hard to say if those are windows, multiple people, or (possibly) Elemental body armor in the cockpit.
On the other hand before Wizkids dropped the line they created 135 ton mechs, so perhaps we'll see the rules for those, and perhaps this is one of them.

Colossals from warmachine cross over?

Not exactly.

The Colossi (Or, as Catalyst will be formally referring to them, the "Superheavy Tripods") are a specific kind of superheavy BattleMech; over 100 tons, with three legs, and three pilots.

There was another superheavy introduced by Catalyst in the Jihad era, the Word of Blake's "Omega". That unit, however, is not considered a Colossal, since it was a bipedal 'Mech with a single pilot.

The stats (and Record Sheet) for the "Omega", and the rules needed to operate it, were published in Jihad: Final Reckoning. The Colossi (sorry, Superheavy Tripods… what can I say? Colossi sounds cooler) will be statted up in Technical Readout: 3145 Republic of the Sphere, though the game mechanics needed to operate them will be in FM:3145.

Battletech stopped being interesting for me around 3058-3060ish.

The Word of Blake/jihad stuff was/is dumb… Finding out the stuff about the timeline to make "clickytech" (mechwarrior clix) work for the history was insulting, and the direction that the fiction (admittedly never GREAT, but passably good for pulpish novels) just turned me off to battletech in general.

Haven't bought a battletech product that wasn't a starter set to gift someone since "fedcom civil war".

This is most assuredly a "pass" for me

The Ares (a Colossal class BattleMech) over on the right, however, is designed to be operated by three people at a time.

Fixed

The PDF edition of Field Manual: 3145 is now up on DTRPG and on the BattleShop.