Battletech Campaign Guide

Building a Battletech Mercenary Unit

Step 1: Unit Construction

This page presents a series of options for unit construction. Each has certain strengths and weaknesses. It is up to the GM and the players to decide which system best suits the needs of their campaign.

Before beginning the campaign the GM and players should select one of the following methods unit construction and use it to define the player's mercenary unit.

If the players are planning to design individual characters for themselves they should complete that step first using either the FanPro Mechwarrior RPG rules or the GURPS character creation method outlined elsewhere on this web site.

Building a Player-Only Unit

In a PC only campaign the entire mercenary unit is composed of the player characters, their equipment, and any techs or other personel they can buy with character points. As a result, most of the work requied to build the mercenary unit is taken care of during character creation. A PC only campaign is by far the simplest to run and the player unit rarely exceeds a company in size. GM's should give the PC's a modest sum of money at the start of the campaign so they can buy ammunition and spare parts before embarking on their first mission. The precise amount of money can vary but 150,000 C-Bills per battlemech or Aerospace fighter is a good guideline.If there are ground vehicles in the unit the players should be granted around 80,000 C-Bills per combat vehicle. This money represents the starting capital of the new company. The players are free to spend it on new equipment or personel, but they should remember that their first month's maintanence fees are only four weeks away. Note that this money is in addition to and separate from any cash the players have from character creation.

Once the players have organized themselves into a fighting unit the GM should select a monthly expense system to keep track of how much money they need to spend to keep their small force in fighting trim. Either of the published systems supported by this guide will do. The basic system from the original Mercenary's Handbook is a bit simpler and requires less day to day book keeping. GM's who want to keep the logistics to a minimum should give that system a try.

Building a Unit Using the Field Manual: Mercenaries, Revised

Building a Unit Using the First Eddition mercenary's Handbook

In a unit point creation campaign using the Battletech Mercenary's Handbook it will have to be up to the GM to decide how big the player's unit should be and as a result, how many unit points to grant the PC's for unit creation. The player characters and any equipment or assistant personel they have bought using character points during unit creation are considered to be free and need not be purchased with unit points. The system in the Mercenary's handbook is tuned for a campaign set somewhere between 3000 and 3030 or so. The unit availability system and unit costs would have to be expanded and adjusted to accomodate campaigns in different eras of the Battletech universe.

In a unit point based campaign, the players do not receive any additional funds at the start ofthe campaign. All of the new unit's money will come either from the player character's pockets or be purchased with unit points during unit creation.