History TabletopGame / Battletech

* BlingOfWar: Due to their proclivity to consider themselves something of an incarnation of medieval knights [[note]] which, considering the neo-feudal nature of the inner sphere, isn't entirely incorrect[[/note]], some mechwarriors elect to decorate their war machines with gaudy and colourful paintjobs based on their allegiances or personal heraldry. Taken up to 11 in most videogame depictions of Rasalhague 'Mechs, which normally incorporate intricate golden and silver patterns into the armour along several shades of blue, guaranteeing that their 'Mechs are the shiniest killing machines in the field of battle.

** The Clans: Generally, the Clans are less defined by having strong roots in a specific Earth culture like the Spheroid states, and more as having themes (there's the trader clan (Diamond Sharks), the religious clan (Cloud Cobras), the over-aggressive clan (Smoke Jaguars), the mystic clan (Nova Cats)...). However, a common element of Clan society is that is is actually a mix of Maoist China, the Mongol Empire, ancient Sparta (with the importance put on martial prowess, raising their kids TheSpartanWay, their cruel treatment of and disdain for serfs, civilians and freebirths in general (all of whom are basically various version of helots) etc.) coupled with a BraveNewWorld-like mindset when it comes to eugenic matters, a very pronounced disgust for natural conception, sexual promiscuity and restricted freedom of thought.

* ''Videogame/MechWarrior'' - A first-person, real-time mech combat simulator series for Windows [=PCs=]. ''[=MechWarrior=]'' is one of the most storied video game franchises of TheNineties, and was a ''massive'' GatewaySeries into the wider ''[=BattleTech=]'' universe for an entire generation of game players. The series had a number of releases between 1989 and 2002 before being sidelined by {{Creator/Microsoft}}, which at the time owned {{Creator/FASA Studio}}, seemingly ending the franchise at ''[=MechWarrior=] 4''. Over the years, after an aborted attempt to revive the franchise in 2009, Piranha Games Interactive launched the free-to-play ''[=MechWarrior=] Online'' in 2012, and ''[=MechWarrior 5 Mercenaries=]'' in 2019.

* ''Franchise/BattleTechExpandedUniverse'' - The Expanded Universe contains the hundreds of novels, the animated series titled ''[=BattleTech=]'' - one of the few Western mech shows. This has existed almost as long as ''[=BattleTech=]'' has (the first novel was printed in ''1986''), and even in the franchise's quieter years never completely stopped being printed.
* ''VideoGame/BattleTech2018'' - A tactical turn-based combat game for PC, [[Website/{{Kickstarter}} kickstarted]] by [[VideoGame/ShadowrunReturns Harebrained Schemes]] (and thus often called "''Harebrained Schemes' [=BattleTech=]''", "''HBS [=BattleTech=]''" or a variant thereof to differentiate it from the TT game), with Jordan Weisman himself as one of the creative directors. It was released on April 24th, 2018.
* ''WesternAnimation/BattleTech'' - A cartoon focused on the exploits of Adam Steiner during the Clan invasion of 3050 as he leads a group to try to take back his home planet from the Clans. It only lasted one season, and occupies a unique niche in terms of canonicity: the animated series is considered ''in-universe'' propaganda, to make Adam Steiner look good. So the cartoon is essentially the cartoon being shown to kids in the Inner Sphere.

* ''VideoGame/BattleTech'' - A tactical turn-based combat game for PC, [[Website/{{Kickstarter}} kickstarted]] by [[VideoGame/ShadowrunReturns Harebrained Schemes]] (and thus often called "''Harebrained Schemes' [=BattleTech=]''", "''HBS [=BattleTech=]''" or a variant thereof to differentiate it from the TT game), with Jordan Weisman himself as one of the creative directors. It was released on April 24th, 2018.

** House Davion: Great Britain / France [-IN SPACE-]

** House Marik: USA / [[DependingOnTheWriter Yugoslavia]] [-IN SPACE-]
** House Liao: Imperial/Communist China / Soviet Union [-IN SPACE-]

** House Kurita: Imperial Japan [-IN SPACE-]

** Outworlds Alliance: Amish / Mennonites [-IN SPACE-]
** Marian Hegemony: Republican / Imperial Rome [-IN SPACE-] (deliberate design by its founder)

** Task Force Serpent - the invasion of Clan Space by the Second Star League.

** There are optional (as well as physically impossible in-universe) rules for the Fusion reactor that powers the 'mechs, allowing them to explode messily when damaged, which is often easier than the amount of armor would indicate. The rules explicitly call out that such explosions would be [[ANuclearError impossible both in universe and in real life by the way fusion reactors normally work]] and that they wrote the entry solely for RuleOfCool (even all but saying "this is not how this works, but hey, who doesn't like to see StuffBlowingUp?"). The FanNickname for the phenomena of exploding fusion reactors is "Stackpoling", from author Michael Stackpole, who included a couple of spectacular reactor explosions in his ''[=BattleTech=]'' novels, again out of RuleOfCool.

* MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness: Charitably Mohs/PhysicsPlus. FasterThanLightTravel and {{Subspace Ansible}}s are present, if both comparatively slow, and fusion power is basically treated as magic than can almost infinitely power anything as long as it's big enough to fit a reactor inside. (The impossibly efficient ''slower''-than-light drives used especially by larger spacecraft, which routinely accelerate or brake at a sustained 1G for ''days'' without using more than a token fraction of their mass as combined fuel and reaction mass for what's supposed to be basically a fusion ''rocket'', are if anything less believable than the actual FTL elements.) 'Mechs manage to not collapse under their own weight at least in part by virtue of...technically having a density so low that they should by rights float in water (not that they actually do). The list goes on. The rules ''within'' the setting [[MinovskyPhysics are generally applied consistently]], but based on "hard" real life physics they're not. On the flipside, it does get credit for requiring heat management, which far too many works (even "harder" ones) ignore,[[note]]to the point that heat management, as a combination of what you shoot, how often, how many heat sinks you have, and even what the planetary conditions are (ambient temperature, or even water to submerge the 'Mech in), and whether to allow the emergency shutdown, override it and risk an explosion, and whether to flush some coolant, all counts as practically a mini game in and of itself[[/note]] and averting common SF tropes such as ArtificialGravity, InertialDampening and unrealistically high accelerations.

* TheGreatPoliticsMessUp:
** The game's timeline started with the fall of the Soviet Union -- in 2011; this was changed in later editions to the Russian Federation. The most recent edition puts it back to the Soviet Union, with history having changed from ours during the 1980s.
** Later editions had Russia undergo a civil war between reformists and communists; which forced NATO to act as peacekeepers. This cooperation lead to the formation of the Western Alliance, which became the Terran Alliance which fell and was replaced by the Terran Hegemony.

Two features make ''[=BattleTech's=]'' gameplay stand out from most other wargames. The first is that in each phase of a turn, players alternate movement or attack declarations with the winner of that turn's initiative always going ''last''. Because damage is resolved after all attacks go off (nobody "shoots first"), and details of movement like facing and attack angles are key elements of gameplay, going first is almost always a disadvantage, since it requires acting with lesser knowledge of your opponent's moves than they have of yours. The second is that the game is based heavily around SubsystemDamage rather than CriticalExistenceFailure. Basic units don't simply have an "alive" and "dead" state, with perhaps a weakened state in between - rather, they have multiple sections, each with two sets of HitPoints and internal components that can be damaged once the outer armor is stripped away, impairing a 'Mech's fighting ability in a number of ways. A 'Mech can be effectively "destroyed" by several means other than sheer damage accumulation,[[note]]three engine hits shuts the 'Mech's reactor down until it can be repaired out-of-combat and so "mission kills" the 'Mech, two hits to the gyro means the 'Mech falls and cannot get back up, rendering it nearly useless, sufficient leg damage can render a 'Mech immobile or impossible to keep upright, destroying all a 'Mech's weapons (or all sections containing weapons) reduces its combat effectiveness to near zero, etc.[[/note]] and a common optional rule forces 'Mechs to begin retreating after reaching certain internal or system damage thresholds, rather than fight to the death. This level of detail is why even a basic four-on-four skirmish can take hours to play out.\\

A large emphasis on the game is on [[DesignItYourselfEquipment customization]]. The game has literally ''hundreds'' of mech chassis, many with dozens of variants a piece, but players are encouraged to customize their units. A player might swap out his large engine for a smaller engine to exchange speed for more armor, or change a heavy autocannon to a particle cannon to increase range and reduce ammunition strain at the cost of overall firepower. There's also the choice of weapons, which are basically between ballistic (bullets and missiles) or energy weapons like lasers, with the pros and cons of each type affecting your playstyle - ballistics produce little heat, but you need to set aside room for ammo, as well as the fact you can run out of it; energy weapons use your power supply for "ammo" and are effectively infinite, but create large amounts of heat which your mech has to get rid of by waiting, or shortening that time with heat sinks or environmental assistance such as water (too much heat will make your mech shutdown, or even possibly explode). The basic game, with "Introductory level" tech rules, has a fairly small amount of selection in regards to equipment, but "Tournament," "Advanced," and "Experimental" tech greatly expand the equipment selection.\\

--> ''Ten years ago, if you had mentioned the words 'Manei Domini' to anyone, you could expect either a confused head-tilt reaction or a correction for your bad Latin.''

** The game's timeline started with the fall of the Soviet Union - in 2011; this was changed in later editions to the Russian Federation. The most recent edition puts it back to the Soviet Union, with history having changed from ours during the 1980s.

Meanwhile in the Inner Sphere, the Clan threat convinced the previously stubborn leaders of the five Successor States to work together, and eventually create the Second Star League in 3058. In order to show the Clans that they meant business, they launched a large-scale military operation against the most aggressive and brutal of the Crusader clans, Clan Smoke Jaguar, retaking former Combine worlds and destroying the Clan entirely. Then the new SLDF headed for Strana Mechty, the birthplace of the Clans and took part, and won, in the Great Refusal that would both practically and officially end the unified large-scale Clan Invasion.\\

For three centuries, the five self-proclaimed Successor States [[note]]The Federated Suns (House Davion), Lyran Commonwealth (House Steiner), Draconis Combine (House Kurita), Free Worlds League (House Marik) and Capellan Confederation (House Liao)[[/note]] fought for dominance, while the Earth-based semi-religious organization known as [=ComStar=], formed by the remains of Star League's Department of Communications, publicly remained neutral while secretly furthering their own agenda (having a monopoly on the only means of interstellar communications helped). During these three centuries of total war, humankind lost a considerable amount of knowledge, now called Lostech, in some ways blowing itself back into the Industrial Age. Only a discovery of the Star League Field Library Memory Core in 3028 arrested this slide.[[note]]in 3025, prior to the discovery of the Memory Core, the vast majority of planets were considered "primitive" - that is, on a technological level of late 20th century Earth, or more than ''1000'' years behind the times[[/note]].\\

Two features make ''[=BattleTech's=]'' gameplay stand out from most other wargames. The first is that in each phase of a turn, players alternate movement or attack declarations with the winner of that turn's initiative always going ''last''. Because damage is resolved after all attacks go off (nobody "shoots first"), and details of movement like facing and attack angles are key elements of gameplay, going first is almost always a disadvantage, since it requires acting with lesser knowledge of your opponent's moves than they have of yours. The second is that the game is based heavily around SubsystemDamage rather than CriticalExistenceFailure. Basic units don't simply have an "alive" and "dead" state, with perhaps a weakened state in between - rather, they have multiple sections, each with two sets of HitPoints and internal components that can be damaged once the outer armor is stripped away, impairing a 'Mech's fighting ability in a number of ways. A 'Mech can be effectively "destroyed" by several means other than sheer damage accumulation[[note]] three engine hits shuts the 'Mech's reactor down until it can be repaired out-of-combat and so "mission kills" the 'Mech, two hits to the gyro means the 'Mech falls and cannot get back up, rendering it nearly useless, sufficient leg damage can render a 'Mech immobile or impossible to keep upright, destroying all a 'Mech's weapons (or all sections containing weapons) reduces its combat effectiveness to near zero, etc.[[/note]], and a common optional rule forces 'Mechs to begin retreating after reaching certain internal or system damage thresholds, rather than fight to the death. This level of detail is why even a basic four-on-four skirmish can take hours to play out.\\

* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: The Clans' Warrior Caste - in a half-twist, they are the ''enemies'' for once. The Invading Clans who settled down in Inner Sphere are gradually changing to the Proud Soldier Race Guy sub-type, whether they want to admit it or not, at least when dealing with the Inner Sphere "barbarians". The Hell's Horses are the only Clan that provides an rather interesting mix of ''both'' the Warrior and Soldier sub-types because, even after the Great Exodus from Terra, they still ascribe to the centuries-old philosophy of combined arms warfare, whom the other Clans consider "hopelessly obsolete" in a field dominated by HumongousMecha.

** Post-Invasion, those of the Inner Sphere are usually presented as Soldiers and the Clans usually as Warriors: The Clans are warriors who fight for individual glory, honor, and the right to have their genes added to the next generation, and operate on AsskickingEqualsAuthority. Clanner battles are basically honor duels. But since the failure of Operation REVIVALM where their own honor was used against them, they slowly started to lean towards the Soldiers, and by the Dark Ages they use ''zelbringen'' against the Inner Sphere only when it gives them advantage.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[Literature/NineteenEightyFour If you want a picture of the future, imagine a 'Mech stomping on some PBI. Forever]].]]

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: Attempted in-universe and defied. One historian from what used to be the Rim Worlds Republic was desperate to find something, anything that would prove that Stefan Amaris wasn't as big of a monster as he was portrayed as. However he lamented in the book he published that not only was Stefan Armaris as much of a monster as popular history protrayed him, he uncovered a few more attoricites Amaris committed that went unrecored.

** Supposedly the story behind the existence of the UM-AIV Urbanmech variant s that one of the game designers at GenCon saw a fan-made model of an Urbanmech launching a nuke that he loved so much he made the supplement that introduced it just to make it canon.

** Just to complicate matters further, rumor has it that Catalyst and Topps are trying to sidestep the issue altogether by designing new artwork and models for the Unseen designs, debuting an [[http://i.imgur.com/7AekIj8.jpg updated Warhammer]] design at Gencon 2015, to considerable interest from fans and a minimum of legal fuss thus far from Harmony Gold.

** Downplayed by The Marian Hegemony, a MicroNation that practices slavery, used to be a bandit kingdom, and has conquered several other states in the Periphery. As a MicroNation they are far too weak to threaten any of the Successor States, or even any of the major Periphery nations.

* TheDreaded: Many individuals and military units fall here. However during the Succession Wars the mere threat that [=ComStar=] was considering to Interdict (refusing any communication services to the targeted party) you was enough to get all but the gutsiest leaders to back off. This is understandable as without the HPG network a nation is restricted to using months long and resource consuming Jumpship courier routes for interplanetary communication; throwing their military efforts, intelligence networks and economics into chaos.

*** Add the [[SuperMode Triple Strength Myomer boost]] to the battlemech kick and you pretty much can remove the legs from any foe who lighter then you and even some of the same weight class if they skimp on leg armor in one kick and against a downed foe results in some pretty brutal curb stomps and ''that's'' before you add the experimental Talon weapons for boosting kick damage which by the way ''ALSO'' benefit from the TSM boost.

** In terms of weapons, the trope is embodied first and foremost by the medium laser. Modest damage, fairly short range... lightweight, compact, heat-efficient, no ammo needs, and arguably the most ubiquitous [=BattleMech=] weapon in the entire Inner Sphere.