Randall Bills talks about Alpha Strike

On the Battletech Battleblog, Randall Bills talks a little bit about Alpha Strike and what's possibly coming with it's release.

The bullets that stick out to me:

Alpha Strike gives anyone (either long-time player or simply a wargammer that’s always wanted to try BattleTech but for what ever reason hasn’t) the ability to dive into a faster way to play, while still retaining the feel of the board game loved by millions. This is as close as BattleTech has ever come to playing like a more “pure” tabletop miniatures game.

 This is why I'm excited about it.  I've tried full Battletech before and it just doesn't grab me.  A little too granular for me. I totally dig it and get why it's fun.  And the narrative it can produce is amazing. However, I don't enjoy that on a regular basis.

Just need the book, some miniatures and their cards and you’re good to go! (You can either order metal miniatures from your local retail store, or directly online from Iron Wind Metals if you’re unable to order from your local store.)

In fact, if you go check out the Master Unit List, and search down to a specific unit page you’ll find theBattleForce record sheet…those sheets are 90% compatible as is with Alpha Strike so you can get into the action quickly (they’re already working on an update to make them 100% compatible for the future).

Game Nite in St Louis carries them.  Games Plus in the Chicagoland area carries them.  The Warstore carries them.  Nice repeating sentences.

The Master Unit List is pretty cool.  I'll create a video on using that in the future.

we’ve embraced as many rules as possible from Tactical Operations and Strategic Operations for that “we’ve got a rule for that!” mentality

So there can be more complexity if you want. Very cool.

Heck, we even create a small “Clan Invasion Army Listing” section so players, particularly new ones can dive right in and start playing in the perennial favorite Clan Invasion Era (you know, the one MechWarrior Online is set in…  ).

Army lists are cool, because to me, a tough thing about this game system is the amount of choices and variations on those choices.  Too much choice causes a lack of feeling good about a decision. So the more help they can provide, all the better.

I dig House Kurita (see my posts on samurai - dig the culture), so it's cool to see this list shown.  For the other noobs - House Kurita is an inner sphere house and not clan. So House K were one of the defenders.

 Regarding future support of Alpha Strike:

“Ideas are already being jotted down for what we could put into an “Alpha Strike Companion” for print down the line, Era Faction Army List PDFs (cause we’ve got a pile of factions and Eras), 

Cool, it will be nice to have some things converted to the BV values of the Alpha Strike cards.

full-color Alpha Strike Unit Cards sold as decks of cards might look like…

Yes.  Very cool.