Saturday saw Diego and myself squeeze in a couple of learning games of BattleTech using the Alpha Strike ruleset.

Bank holiday traffic had made getting to Diego’s gaff a nightmare.

Our first game was the first scenario from the quick start rules, using the suggested mech teams from the Alpha Strike starter set.

This starting scenario is basically last man standing with the only scenery used being trees.

Which makes sense for a first game. Keep it simple whilst learning the rules.

Keeping to the spirit of keeping things simple we used the 3D printed woods templates printed for me by Duncan to represent woods on the tabletop. They looked pretty cool.

In this game I was the attacker with two mechs. Whilst Diego was the defender with four mechs.

I did take out two of Diego’s mechs before the numbers worked in his favour and I was defeated.

Game two used all the mechs in the starter set. It was Diego defending again with two lances against my attacking lance.

Instead of buildings we used the 3D hills I had bought to use with the game. Time was a consideration. We didn’t have long before I had to leave for work. So putting together the cardboard buildings would have eaten into that scare playtime.

Before I had to leave I had taken out two of Diego’s mechs to him eliminating one of mine. So a moral victory for me I think.

I liked how the two intro scenarios slowly introduced you to the rules of the game, but not all of them.

Plus as starter sets go there is a lot here to play with for beginners. I like it. Great value.

As for Alpha Strike itself. I liked it a lot. It has just about the right level of complexity for me. Especially on the combat side. Not sure I’d want to play with the optional rule on multiple dice rolls for damage.

Once you get used to the flow for calculating your target number it becomes very second nature.

Can’t wait to get to the table again and get my revenge on Diego.