Today has brought a couple of good (and free) downloads for two of our favourite giant robot games—BattleTech: Alpha Strike and Heavy Gear Blitz. For the former, Catalyst Game Labs have released Alpha Strike Stat Cards for a variety of Aerospace units. For the latter, the first Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document is now available for the new 3rd Edition rules.
BattleTech Alpha Strike is all about quicker, more streamlined games than the classic BattleTech: Total Warfare rules allow. That makes it easier to bring a bigger variety of units into your games. These new pdf card decks ensure you have all the Aerospace assets you could want for your games. The first document is for Warships and Jumpships, all the jump-capable ships of the BattleTech universe. The second is Dropships and Small Craft—the vessels you’re more likely to come across in BattleTech warfare. Both can be downloaded from the Catalyst webstore for free or Drivethrurpg.com as pay-what-you-want; this post on the BattleTech website gives all four links to get the pdf cards.
Meanwhile Heavy Gear Blitz players, currently energised by the recent release of the 3rd Edition Rulebook and the Force Compendium, will no doubt want to check out the new FAQ document. It’s been added to the bundle of useful files that comes with the 3rd Edition PDF Rulebook, so you can download it (along with the rules if you don’t already have them) for free.
If you’ve not tried Heavy Gear Blitz yet, and you’re the kind of person that’s read this far into a post on giant robot games, then I recommend you download it and try it out. It’s a very different setting and ruleset to BattleTech, but there’s plenty that will appeal to BattleTech fans and it plays quickly, just like Alpha Strike.
It too has a long and rich history of development (over 25 years now) and a world of factions with details and varied positions neither wholly in the right nor the wrong.