Shakedown Mission Issued: Starter Box

It's a whole new world out there, MechWarriors.

Our MechTechs have been hard at work tuning up a new starter box for you and yours and we think you’ll find the ride smooth as Capellan silk. If you’ll remember from the previous briefings, we brought you two plastic ‘Mechs of similar build, with everything you needed to learn the basics of ‘Mech combat. Initially, there was the first iteration of the BattleTech: Beginner Box featuring the tough Wolverine and the sniping Griffin. Then it evolved into the second iteration, swapping the Wolverine for the flexible trooper-’Mech, the Vindicator. We then revisited the experience with the BattleTech: Essentials box taking place on the Game World of Solaris VII. Inside that box you found the unique Rifleman, Legend-Killer, and the heroic Centurion, Yen-lo-Wang. All of these boxes offered a similar experience for new players of BattleTech.

It's been a long time coming and the shape of the battlefield has changed, with a kit to match it. In this new BattleTech: Starter Box, we feature the Kontio, a close-combat dynamo, against the Hammerhead, a bulky powerhouse loaded with lasers. The new variants are designed to help ease the new recruits into piloting, while the veterans among you will feel right at home with the loadouts of these 40-ton war machines. All-new sculpts of these mountains of metal will be enough to get anyone started, but we also included standees of some of the new targets you’ll be facing from the upcoming BattleTech: Core Box. These will be playable with the included beginner sheets, with helpful reminder text for some of the modern weapon systems they’ll be fielding. As always, a Quick-Start guide will get your sortie started and a dual-sided map sheet, with punch-out objective markers, will keep your pilots engaged till they’re ready to blood themselves on a whole new battlefield.

And always remember rule number one: Kill the meat, save the metal.

- CJ Irelan