“Conquering BattleTech” in 1987

We’ve seen two other Gateways magazine articles about giant robot games of the eighties (Mekton and Robotech), and now it is time to share a third work, this time about my personal favorite of the genre: BattleTech! (I’m such a fan, in fact, that my contribution to Hobby Games: The 100 Best* was a BattleTech essay. I really should sit down one day and expand my thoughts on the game into a much larger work.)

“Conquering BattleTech,” written by M. Brenshaw, provides an overview of the game’s system, the setting, and even touches on two of the bigger BattleTech expansions of the time (AeroTech and CityTech). As with the other two similar articles (Mekton and Robotech), what makes this overview of BattleTech the most fun is that it comes decades after the launch of the gameworld. Since this was published, tens of millions of words have been written about the setting, and people have played all sorts of great BattleTech games. But when this was new, in 1987, we had no idea how far the game would go.

I’m loving these brief peeks at the past of giant robot games!