BattleTech is Officially One of the Biggest Names in Tabletop Gaming Now

At least according to both Catalyst and Polygon....

I hadn't intended on making a blog post this quickly after the last one, but I thought I would say something about the article. The Catalyst article can be found here:A Look Back–And Ahead–at BattleTech’s Success. The Polygon article can be found here: BattleTech is officially one of the biggest names in tabletop gaming now. What I want to do is take a look a the numbers Catalyst has put out.

At the end of 2022, the seventh printing of A Game of Armor Combat and the eighth printing of the Beginner's Box had been shipped out. In the last four years, 160,000 copies of both those boxed set have been printed up and sent to the market place.

160,000 copies.

Not bad for a game that was declared dead and buried the on the late 90's, or on life support in the 00's. A game that has been around close to 40 years, with an initial high learning curve, and whose rules had remained mostly the same in that time. In this day of short attention spans and computer games, Battletech has held its own and has brought in new players and those returning to the game after years of inactivity.

The key is no doubt the plastic miniatures that come with each box. The minis, well-detailed and relatively cheap (Compared to the metal minis, which have their own place in the play of things), have been overhauled and resized to make clear the differences between each 'Mech class from light 'Mechs up to the assault 'Mechs.

On that foundation, Catalyst launched a highly successful Kickstarter to  bring in Clan 'Mechs into the mix. A Boxed set was backed with multiple Lance, Star, and Level IIs packs, (AKA, Force Packs) along with a wave of swag. The Clan boxed set is currently on it's fourth printing and brings another 55,000 copies to the marketplace, bringing the number of copies of the three boxed sets to 215,000.

And the New Alpha Strike boxed set, that adds another 25,000 to the initial print run, and a second printing run of 20,000 already in progress, will boost the number of boxed sets to over a quarter of a million for all boxed sets.

As for force packs? 600,000 force packs printed up, of which most have already been sold. According to the Polygon article, over 9,000,000 plastic minis have been manufactured. NINE MILLION. (It can be argued that's more 'Mechs than the 'Mech combat strength of the combined militaries of every faction in the game) and the four new merc-themed lances coming out in January and four more in March will add another 160,000 force packs, bringing the total number of force packs up to three quarters of a million.

But I have to include the other part of the Battletech line -- sourcebooks, rulebooks, and supplements. The Total Warfare rulebook is on its tenth printing, and comparing a first printing with a tenth printing will show that the two printings rules set are 97-98% the same. Catalyst has gone heavily into digital products, allowing series that would otherwise never be seen a chance to find an audience that is more tech-savvy than ten years ago. 

And Fiction.... What can I say? Only a few IPs can boast over a hundred novels, covering several hundred years of war, political intrigue, and skulduggery and have a base consistency few other IPs can match. Shrapnel has been a success, and the next issue will be #12 -- three years of consistence work to get the magazine out on time. I have had some success in  both fiction and sourcebook writing and hope to do more of it in 2023.

I can't wait to see the Merc Kickstarter!

Craig