Another fantastic Battletech Quick Start Guide! This will definitely give enough information to start playing and help you to decide if this system works for you as an RPG.

A Time of War is Catalyst Game Lab's attempt at bringing the Battletech Universe to an Role Playing Game format. This product in particular is the "quick start" free rules that give you a mission, some characters, and off you go. Overall these types of releases (there are three total overall, each with a different mission) give players a small taste of what to expect from the game's rules.

The game's engine runs on simple two (or three) dice with six sides, similar to the Battletech Total Warfare or Alpha Strike ruleset. The mission is simple. The characters are low power enough to be normal "thug" NPCs for a regular 5,000 XP created character. The equipment is already assigned to a character, so there's no real "shopping" you need to do.

As a strength, this is where the releases go right. Here's your sheets, a mission, just sit down and play. Apparently these Quick Start Rules for AToW are missions used as a "starter" mission for bigger campaigns down the road that you make. They are generic enough for any starting or experienced GM to utilize, plus they are free!

On the weakness of the product, as stated earlier there's not much option to alter the characters. There's no quick character generation rules, though informally I've been told "just change a skill to something else you want." Also there's no cost sheet for anything to purchase, thus I can't do something like trade in a weapon for something else.

If people are looking at this for starting a campaign from the go, don't. Rather get A Time of War AND use this to start a campaign.

If you're just looking for a fun, one-off, easily playable mission to try then this and the other Quick Starts by CGL are useful.

I have played battletech since the beginning. Was looking at a quick way to get new players in. This looks like it should work well.

This new edition i have high hopes for, its of increadable quality and the rules changes looks like they are making a serious effort to fill in the "character behind the pilot" as it were. the rules seem pretty straight forward and they took a lot of what makes battletech feel the way it does and wrote it into the way the roleplaying rules play.

My only gripe is that the the rules seem to focus on infantryman level conflict. this could just be the focus of the quickstart however, but i was hoping to see more on what a mechwarrior, aerospace pilot or infantryman does when he's not fighting the good fight with the battletech warfare rules. things like indepth sneaking/espionage rules; social conflcits with ones superiors or other organizations responsible for your unit or living up the life of an explorer in the wilds [call it shore leave]. i suspect these things are in the main rules for purchase, but it would have been pretty cool to see some of those mechanics mixed into this quick start along with the infantry fighting.

this is worth downloading, and i'm very tempted to find the other game mechanics in the main rule book... give this one a read!

This game has always fascinated me, and I’ve never played it. However, with the quick-start rules for the latest edition, this is going to change. Battletech: A Time of War advances the timeline to the year 3077 in what is arguably one of the most detailed intellectual properties in the science fiction genre. A cursory search will yield the decades of sourcebooks which came before it and the shelf of novels that you can immerse yourself in (and steal ideas from).

This free PDF offers a fairly in-depth explanation of the basic rules (they take up most of the document) and there are plenty of quick-reference tables for the novice to refer to throughout gameplay. It is clear that Catalyst thought very carefully about this product, and the high production values, catchy art and design layout are all of the quality I’ve come to expect. The character sheets are straightforward and punchy and come with some neat character art for each of the PC’s (of which there are four). The only problem is that scenario provided is only two pages long, but an enterprising GM could easily turn the premise into a few nights of fun. Also, given the amount of rules in here, you could play a few basic games and really get a feel for the game before investing the rulebook (which after reading the quick-start, I’ll be doing).

From: http://www.miragearcana.com/news-a-blog/40-game-night-blog-12-free-your-mind

This is a good product, but there are a few things holding it back.

First, it's not terribly generous with stuff. I mean, it's a quick-start, I realize, and free. But I have a copy of the old MechWarrior 2nd Edition game, and I am not really enticed to upgrade by this. I mean, it's not bad, but it's nothing exceptional. The problem is that it just doesn't have anything I couldn't have guessed at, which may be a sign that I'm too hardcore when it comes to Battletech.

All-in-all, it's a good quickstart, and it'll run you a game, but I'm just not sure if it's enough to entice me to buy. Still, the rules are fun, and easy, so there's no reason to jump in, it is free, after all.