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GTM #300 - BattleTech Aces: Scouring Sands
by Catalyst Game Labs

 

BattleTech Aces: Scouring Sands by Catalyst Game Labs 

BattleTech’s Aces in the Hole

Battletech has a long history. The past 40 years have seen the game and the universe grow and evolve. Since Catalyst Game Labs has picked up the mantle of BattleTech, it has reached a height in popularity that the franchise has never seen before today. There must be something about a classic rules system and stompy robots, right?

One could look at the modern era of the game starting in 2019, when the first major redesigns for BattleTech miniatures began. We released a small set of Inner Sphere ’Mechs with the BattleTech: Beginner Box and A Game of Armored Combat, each containing timeless designs like the Wolverine and the Awesome. In the same year, we released the Alpha Strike: Commander’s Edition rulebook, highlighting BattleTech’s newest and most streamlined mode of play, laying the groundwork for what was to come.

Jade Falcon insignia by Catalyst Game Labs

Not content to stop there, in 2020 we released a slew of new products, all covering one of the most popular eras of BattleTech’s long history, the Clan Invasion. Powerful BattleMechs and OmniMechs, like the Mad Dog and Atlas faced off, along with the first infantry option seen in plastic, Elemental Battle Armor. Releases for this series continued into 2021 with the popular ComStar Level II ForcePacks and others.

BattleTech by Catalyst Game Labs

Also in 2021, we saw the release of some of the first independent ForcePacks, namely the Wolf’s Dragoons Assault Star. Mixing new sculpts with new-to-plastic models was an interesting experience and as the Mercenary ForcePack series grew, with things like the Eridani Light Horse Hunter Lance and Northwind Highlanders Command Lance, we found that people wanted more and more ’Mechs.

2022 brought us a milestone in our forth BattleTech box set with the famous Alpha Strike box set! This set, with its thirteen miniatures and alternative form of play, expanded what we could really provide as an experience to the fans of BattleTech. The box provided not only the core rules for people to learn Alpha Strike, but also terrain and battlefield support cards to expand your games with your friends.

BattleTech by Catalyst Game Labs

Last year saw the launch of the Star League Command Lance, introducing the idea of pre-painted miniatures to the BattleTech fandom, which turned out to be popular, especially with newer fans.

Now, in 2025, with the Mercenaries boxed set and associated ForcePacks hitting retail shelves, we are determined to outdo ourselves yet again. At PAX Unplugged in December, we unveiled BattleTech: Aces –a revolutionary way to play Alpha Strike either solo or co-operatively!

For this project, we called in our friends at Lynnvander Studios. We’ve worked with them on a number of projects in the past: the co-op mode for Shadowrun Sprawl Ops, Super Camelot, and Shadowrun Takedown. They’re a rockstar design team with dozens of big licensed games under their belts including Buffy, Star Trek Alliance, Snap Ships Tactics, and Evil Dead 2 to name a few.

The idea behind Aces is a simple one: provide an experience that is easy to pick up and enjoy, either solo or with friends. This type of game is getting more common in the wargaming industry now, especially with CGL favorites like 5 Parsecs from Home and Rangers of Shadowdeep, or Lynnvander’s popular co-op campaign play in Star Trek Alliance. BattleTech has a rich history of campaign play, and with Lynnvander’s help, we were able to dig deep into that history and use it to create some fantastic co-operative campaign stories. Building on the Alpha Strike ruleset, Aces brings the Battletech universe to new players in an even more accessible way.

Early playtest rules for BattleTech: Aces were made available to the community. Those rules, while an important early step, became obsolete pretty quickly in the development process. Iteration after iteration has made the current rules much tighter. This automated opponent is capable and unpredictable, and it can handle a wide range of scenarios and objectives. Beyond using the Aces decks for the solo/co-op campaign that comes with Aces, they can be used for any game of Alpha Strike to automate any kind of unit.

For those new to solo-play skirmish games, the concept is simple. The experience is much more like a single-player video game. For this Alpha Strike game mode, the player(s) controls a series of units and fights against a series of “AI” units, controlled by the game. For tabletop games like this, the AI is usually represented by a series of dice or a deck of cards with abilities and movement patterns that are either printed on the cards or rolled on a table. Aces has a deck of cards to control units of any battlefield role (brawler, striker, sniper, missile boat, etc) along with a series of Command decks that simulate the command decisions of in-universe opponents.. Having all of these options gives the AI system immense flexibility and  unpredictability, even against experienced Alpha Strike players.

 BattleTech by Catalyst Game Labs

Our upcoming releases for BattleTech: Aces will mark a new and unique era for BattleTech as a whole. Like the Alpha Strike box set, each campaign box will come with unique cardboard terrain pieces for a different planetary biome, new aces decks, new commanders, new pilot edge abilities, and of course, new plastic miniatures to use as the campaign’s opposing force. We will be seeing at least four boxes, each themed after a major sourcebook released in the last few years.

 BattleTech Aces: Scouring Sands by Catalyst Game Labs

First up will be Scouring Sands, based on the Hinterlands region covered in the Tamar Rising sourcebook. Taking place on the planet of Apolakkia, the box’s branching narrative campaign finds players hired by the nearby Alynia Mercantile League and tasked with removing some troublesome Jade Falcon remnants. Coming in the box will be the following new miniatures! We will be seeing new variants with the Locust IIC 4, Howler 6, Summoner H, Marauder IIC 6, Bane 3, and Rifleman C 2. Also included in the box will be the never-before-seen-in-plastic Thunderbolt IIC and two Fulcrum Hovertanks!

We are excited for the world that BattleTech: Aces and the Scouring Sands campaign box will open for BattleTech and Catalyst! More reveals will be coming in only a month’s time at Adepticon! 

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Meical Kingfisher is a mega-nerd who fell in love with the world of BattleTech in 2020. They have an extensive throne of unpainted plastic, and BattleTech is a SIGNIFICANT portion of it!