Jeffro’s Car Wars Blog

I picked this up at the used book store last night– the Battletech counterpart to the “Car Wars Compendium”.

It’s not a redesign of the old game, but it does clarify and compile a lot of stuff. It leaves out Aeorotech, though– but that’s okay, we never really used it! (Though LAM rules would have been nice for the transformable Jet type mecha….)

Most significantly, it adds equations for establishing the “Base Value” of a unit. (Very similar to the BPV in Star Fleet Battles.) Also there are several scenarios built around the BVs. The Battletech boxed sets that I’ve seen really don’t come with any decent scenarios, so that’s very handy. Finally, there are equations for calculating the cost of units. I don’t know if they are any good– if they’re the same ones that were in Mechwarrior, then they give the idiotic result that one Atlas can be bought for the price of 3 Locusts.

Many of my irritations with the system are addressed here, so I feel bad about slamming the game a few posts back.

On the other hand… I’m especially sad to see that Fasa really is gone.

(Moment of silence, please.)

Here’s a link on that:

http://dumpshock.com/FASA-FAQ.html#4.1

I really wish I had more details on this:

“After 20 happy-and difficult-years in business, FASA Corporation is closing its doors.

“The adventure gaming world has changed much in those years, and it is time for the founders of FASA to move on.”

What are the market forces that they recognized there and in what way are those forces going to affect Steve Jackson Games?