Never Skip Mandatory Books And Think You'll Understand The New Battletech Book
The disclaimer at the bottom of all my posts covers this, but I know very little about BattleTech lore. I have a good grasp on what the different time periods are, and high concepts of the larger players, but that's just about it. However, I play way more BattleTech than any other game and lore is a huge driver and motivator for me to play a game. So, I've started dipping my toe into learning more.
I just so happened to be out checking out a new-to-me game store when I saw that they had a table set up with all the new BattleTech releases, most of them being items from the Mercenaries Kickstarter. Along with those releases, I saw the new ilKhan's Eyes Only sourcebook and decided to jump into the deep end. Since this book is really more lore than rulesets, I figured doing a "standard" review wouldn't quite work. So instead, let's assume that the book *wasn't* just for the ilKhan and see what other people would think of it...
Narrative-ly Speaking, I’m Lost
The deep end is definitely what I found myself in reading through this book. To summarize where we are in the BattleTech universe, this book deals with the fallout from Clan Wolf taking Terra and founding the 3rd Star League. The "ilKhan" is the leader of the "ilClan", or Clan of Clans, given to the Clan that succeeds in the Clan's original goal of capturing Terra and trying to bring the galaxy back to their "former glory". That's pretty much what I knew going into this book. However, there were several times I had to stop and pull up sarna.net to look up terms that were just casually thrown about in this book.
To the book's credit, they do have a "suggested reading" section after a cool piece of fiction telling you what will help put the events of the book into perspective. I would note that is a misnomer, I would say its more required reading than suggested. I get that I picked the worst book to jump in on and start reading, but there was no way to know that from just picking up the book. It's not inconceivable that someone new to BattleTech would see this book on a shelf, read the description, and buy the book wanting to learn more. In which case that person would quickly get disappointed having not read all the previous books.
It wouldn't even take much to remedy this - just take one page and give a quick paragraph on how we got to this point and list out some major terms that are used in the book assuming the reader has kept up. Things like "the fortress wall", "lithium fusion batteries", etc. How many times have you picked up a D&D book and/or a Warhammer codex and skipped the first couple of pages because you already know what it's going to say? I'm sure the vast majority of the people reading this book would skip that here too, but people in the same boat as me would really appreciate it.
The actual content of the first half of the book is pretty much what you would expect from a sourcebook of this type. It starts out on Terra, talking about the steps that Clan Wolf put into play once they begin their new Star League. Of course, even with all the other factions held away from the planet, there's still all the billions of people that live on Terra who now have a new government thrust upon them. So obviously resistance groups spring up and people are unhappy.
I'm actually glad to see that the ilKhan sees that forcing their way upon the Terrans isn't exactly going to win them any favors. They make a valiant effort to convert everyone over, but eventually they have to make some concessions and come up with different ways of doing things. Especially when it comes to the Star League Defense Force (SLDF), the group that ironically was what became the Clans in the first Star League. It gets downplayed a lot in the beginning but then the book begins to spiral out away from Terra as the new Star League pushes out. Then, you start to see the SLDF become a helpful part of the Inner Sphere. Of course, this being BattleTech, it is only a matter of time before that comes crashing down.
It’s 31st CEntury Facebook
Coming in after all the narrative, there are pages detailing out each of the main players discussed in the previous pages. Breaking them down across all the different factions, it serves to back up those sections and showcase who exactly is holding the knives at each other's throats. My first thought was that this information would be better to showcase before the narrative, but it talks about bits of the lore that would weaken the impact of the narrative. Better to think about the book as talking about the lore in universe first, then the next sections as the breakdown of that lore to us outside of the setting.
Personally, my favorite part was reading about Clan Sea Fox. I wasn't as familiar with them as I was some of the "bigger names" like Clan Wolf, Smoke Jaguar, etc. But I get the feeling that they will become more important as Catalyst continues to push the BattleTech narrative further in the future. Turns out, Clan Sea Fox was a big economic resource in helping Clan Wolf take over Terra. The ilKhan may control the planet, but Clan Sea Fox is holding the purse strings.
Not only that, Clan Sea Fox quickly takes advantage of the debts owed to them by integrating themselves in key infrastructures in the new Star League. They are given control of the Bureau of Star League Affairs, which is basically in charge of a lot of the mundane bureaucracy involved in managing a government. Makes sense within the story as they already are an economic power so are resourceful enough to make sure the new government moves efficiently. But in this period of time, the Hyperpulse Generator (HPG) network, which allows faster than light communications, has been severely crippled. Clan Sea Fox uses their new position to try and get all the info they can on what happened during the HPG "blackout" and how they can get the network back up and running. Which sounds great, but I could easily see them becoming a new ComStar-like power, using their knowledge of the HPGs as leverage against everyone else.
Putting the Lore on the Table
After going through a brief summary of what everyone else is up to in the Inner Sphere, the book turns to what will probably be the most used section of the book. This is where the lore meets the tabletop: creating scenarios set during this time period. Half of the section is filled with random tables for mechs, aircraft, and other vehicles so you can throw in time-appropriate forces for whatever you set out to do. The rules are set out for both Campaign Operations for classic BattleTech or for Alpha Strike.
In the factions section, there were detailed descriptions for several different squadrons that see action in the book. In this section, each of those squadrons get information on who's in control of them, what table(s) to use to generate their units, and special abilities for players running that faction. I haven't had much experience playing with these types of special abilities, but the one for the "Third Sian Dragoons" is pretty wicked. Called "Messengers of Atrocity", it lets you do a special mental assault on the opposing team instead of a normal attack.
There are even rules for infantry units used in these scenarios. Although, I'm hoping some of these rules are in other books as well. I say this because some of the "special weapons" mentioned include Molotov cocktails and booby traps. That's stuff that we have in present day, so even with BattleTech's history of losing tech every so many years, that is still stuff that should be present in practically every time period.
Conclusion
This book is pretty good, assuming you've kept up with the ilKhan lore so far. If not, you'll probably want to go back and check out some of the earlier books first. For me, it made me want to read more BattleTech fiction. The short stories in this book were some of my favorite bits to read.
Seriously though, even half a page or just a glossary of common terms would have made this book so much easier to get into.
Whenever I see rules for running a mob in BattleTech with these giant war machines, I get reminded of the "would you rather fight one horse sized duck or 100 duck sized horses?"
Notes/Disclaimers: Obviously, these reviews are all fake. Also, I generally assume I know nothing. So if I've missed something, let me know in the comments. If you like these types of posts, consider subscribing to our patreon.