BattleTech Gothic: The Review

Happy October, everyone, and apologies for the long delay between posts; turns out its hard for me to keep up with self-imposed deadlines in the midst of my country collapsing into a fascist nightmare.

Anyway, October means it's not just time for spooky season, but also the official release of BattleTech Gothic, the first of the Continuum box sets! We also got a fun surprise in this month's free BT short story, which gives us a glimpse at Bryan Young's fan-favorite Fox Patrol – or rather their Gothic counterparts, the Fox Marauders.

For folks wondering if this is a box set worth grabbing, the short answer is an enthusiastic YES. The long answer? Well, let's take a look inside and see.

BattleTech Gothic: What's In the Booooox?

The introductory rules in the Gothic box make this a great entry point for new players who have never played BT before – but the layout of info might make this a better rulebook to have on-hand while playing even for veterans.

For example, a while back I did a deep dive into various editions of the rules to find a good version of the diagram for explaining how damage is applied/transfers, as a new player in my Discord server expressed some trepidation as to how complicated the process was. It turns out that BattleTech hasn’t ever even had a good diagram for this process – the old rulebooks I grew up with just had it laid out step-by-step in text, while the newer BattleMech Manual tried a convoluted graphical representation that I personally found even harder to look at. So it was a nice surprise to see a damage flow diagram in the Gothic rulebook that actually made sense to the eye – hopefully this is something that CGL will keep in mind, especially as they work towards revising the core rulebooks.

The rules for Abominations – arguably the only "new" thing Gothic brings to the table – are fun and nicely overlap with BA and ProtoMechs. The smallest of these critters run around in squads roughly equivalent in firepower and durability to light BA, while the biggest two categories are actually ‘mech-sized at two levels tall. The smallest ones feel oddly like Blakist battle armor due to their squads of 6; meanwhile, with its immense block of health, a Titan-class abomination is easily the equal of an introtech light ‘Mech. I'm excited to see what comes of the recently-mentioned Abomination ForcePack, because these nasty guys deserve to be molded in plastic and rampaging across tabletops worldwide.

Also fun are the Gothic-exclusive 'Mech variants, included on the flip sides of the double-sided, dry-erase-friendly record sheets. Blazers (and the shiny new Light Blazer) abound, which seemed like an odd choice at first given how inefficient they are on the tabletop, but Gothic also provides a pretty solid in-universe justification for them. Blazers can now be switched into Dazzle Mode, which halves their damage against regular 'Mechs and also halves their heat generation, but still does full damage against Abominations. This is fluffed as exploiting Abominations' innate vulnerability to ultraviolet light, and has the handy effect of turning Gothic's ridiculous RFL-3B Rifleman into something actually usable.

The rest of the box contents – the double-sided mapsheets, punch-out counters, minis, and sheet of transfers with Gothic faction logos – are as high-quality as anything I've ever seen from Catalyst. My minis are already halfway painted, but here's a few quality pictures from before I started slopping paint all over them.

The mold quality on these is excellent. The Atlas' multiple heads are a lot of fun, with each seeming sillier and more outlandish than the last, and I appreciate that most of the 'Mechs have at least one banner molded on. After all, if you've got a ten-meter-tall war machine, why bother being subtle with it? Let that freak flag fly!

There are also a few excellent Easter eggs of lore to be found in the box's pilot cards. For example, Hanse Davion's ride is a King Crab instead of a BattleMaster, and he's just happy to be stomping heads because his big brother Ian is still on the throne. Frederick Steiner continues moping about from the opening fiction, and pilots an Atlas, just like in the main timeline. With no Rasalhagian succession to worry about, Haakon Magnussen is happily piloting a Rifleman for the Dragon and is buddy-buddy with Marcus Kurita. Wayne Waco’s son is still alive too, although clearly he’s doing his best to get killed in any timeline. Candace Liao is apparently a relentlessly horny snake-lady here, which is… a choice.

Finally we have my favorite nod, which is a twofer: first, Patrick Kell pilots a Scorpion now, and he (and his brother) run a privateer band painted in red and black called… the WOLF Hounds. They did still get the funds to do that from a rich cousin… likely the same rich cousin who styles herself as the Red Duchess, the notable Marauder pilot who rumor says is the black sheep of the Steiner family. So I guess we know where Katrina is in this timeline – she’s wrecking shit on the anti-spinward end of the Iron Alliance, Red Corsair style, and honestly? Good for her!

The Good, Bad, and Ugly of the Gothic Setting

Gothic clearly isn’t just “BattleTech 40K” like so many people were claiming it was when it was announced, but it does wind up feeling a little like 40K in the sense that all of the factions are paranoid, xenocidal dictatorships. The introductory fiction reinforces this all too well, with its final scene showing Frederick Steiner – a known quantity in the main timeline – having a rather tense conversation with his sister, Archon Lys Steiner, who has clearly divested herself from traditional Steiner pragmatism in favor of a legitimately concerning fixation on the idea of purity. Mind you, this is a universe where "genetic purity" no longer means "fascistic racism," but instead refers to the widespread use of genetic engineering to fundamentally change human beings into genetic hybrids known as the Frayed. But even with that diegetic understanding, I'm not a big fan of the idea of genetics-based ideology.

I’m absolutely not accusing CGL of trying to slip any ideological dogwhistles into Gothic, especially considering that the author of said fiction (and Gothic in general) is Herb Beas, BT’s Line Developer from 2007 to 2013 and the official BT forums’ most notorious nuclear weapon enthusiast. I remember Herb’s time in the BattleTech driver’s seat fondly, both for his acerbic attitude and the extensive amount of work he put in to making sure the Jihad made even a lick of sense. Gothic’s deliberately over-the-top bloodthirstiness reads very much like Herb doing what he does best: making everything (in-universe) terrible for everyone involved.

It’s also 2025, and I’m a trans woman in a country increasingly gripped by rhetoric of ideological and genetic purity. That throne room scene left me feeling a little dirty, and not in the fun way. Still, I'm happy to chalk that up as "not for me," and look instead at both the quality of the product and the opportunities it provides going forward.

What new mechanics and features will other Continuum boxes bring? Will the others include new unit types or equipment, or build off the Mercenaries box and its Battlefield Support Point rules in order to increase the game's focus on combined-arms play? Personally, I hope so, because as much as I love BattleMechs, I think the setting and game are at their best when ‘Mechs are just one part of the big picture. Here's hoping that Rockets and Rayguns eventually lives up to Gothic's excellent quality!