# Ontology Recapitulates Phylogeny - Battledroids to Steel Rift: Trigger Initiation tags: #thoughts #game/wargame/battletech #game/wargame/steel-rift ![[Battledroids (cover).jpg]]![[Steel Rift (cover).jpg]]![[Steel Rift - Burning Horizons (cover).jpg]]![[Steel Rift - Close Quarters (cover).jpg]] Did you ever have one of those things that just itches in the back of your brain and won't leave you alone no matter how much you want it to just go bugger off? Those things happen to me a lot. I wish they didn't, but here we are. When they combine with my love of the history of tabletop wargaming and some of the less pleasant things going on in the tabletop wargaming space, what I end up feeling is that I should really do something relatively entertaining in order to help address the problem. In this case, the problem is with the current holders of the **[[BattleTech]]** licensing, [CGL](https://www.catalystgamelabs.com/). You can look up quite a lot of references to [their current shenanigans](https://youtu.be/562qX87ltG4), including selling things into the mass market before they fulfill the Kickstarters for those things. It's just generally a mess.  They have not been particularly good when it comes to treating the writers that helped them get where they are, up to the point of [not paying them legally owed funds](https://blainepardoe.wordpress.com/2024/09/05/ive-filed-legal-action-against-topps-corporation/). It's bad, is what I'm saying. There has been an overall push to move away from any of the CGL **BattleTech** products in order to "preserve" classic **BattleTech** and make it sustainable as an ongoing IP. There is a *lot* of this going around the tabletop RPG and wargaming world with current license holders to very long-term solid IP deciding to screw over their creators and their historical audience for some sort of imagined audience that can be taken instead. I don't think much of any of these developments. Luckily, neither I nor you have to, because all of the original books, texts, discussions, miniatures, *all of that still exist*. I do love the **BattleTech** setting. It is one of the most elaborately evolved, most evocative, most grounded RPG or wargame worlds to ever grace a tabletop. This is great. I want more of it. But I don't actually want to reward the people who currently hold the IP and, heretical as it may be, I think that the mechanics are way too heavy for the gameplay you get out of it. Do I enjoy blowing armor off of specific locations to expose the underlying superstructure and then landing a critical hit? *Absolutely*. It's a great joy, especially when you blow off someone's head with an AC/20. It's a joy forever. Can I get some other pleasure out of maneuver warfare? You better believe it. That's where **[[Steel Rift]]** comes in. Published in 2022, **Steel Rift** is a lightweight, fast-moving, particularly well-tuned, mech-based tabletop wargame, which comes with a fairly minimalist setting, but some absolutely fantastic miniatures. The miniatures are designed to have completely swappable weapon systems to the point where you can magnetically attach and detach arms if you want for different loadouts. This also means that the construction system is extremely flexible and ready to rock and roll. As such, in a real sense, it's quite miniatures agnostic. Bring what minis you have to the table, stat them up relatively quickly, and get them out on the field blowing stuff up. That is the goal. It's a good goal. It occurred to me that the very first edition wasn't named that at all. It was **Battledroids**, and remained such until Lucasfilm sued the original creators for the use of the word "droid," giving rise to the second edition, **BattleTech**. Most of the aspects you connect with **BattleTech** were present from the very beginning. Some of them were relegated to the advanced or expert rules, which were provided in the original 32-page book, along with a lot of the designs that would become *[the Unseen](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Unseen)*. There were mechanics to cover both vehicles and infantry, which you might not have expected to be there from the beginning. This is great for us, because between the three relatively small books from Death Ray Designs, which make up **Steel Rift**, we have almost everything that existed in classic Battledroids. There are a few bits and pieces here and there that aren't in the texts as they stand, but with a little finagling I think I can help us get to that point. That brings us here to a brand new paragraph. *Phylogeny Recapitulates Ontology*. We are going to reconstruct **Battledroids** using **Steel Rift**, and incidentally, accidentally, somewhere along the way, maybe provide you an option, if you are a current **BattleTech** player, for something a little more modern, a little more streamlined, a little more faster. But without changing your miniatures. That's the plan, anyway. Fuck it, we're going to do this live. It won't always get done every single day, but hopefully in three or four articles, I will have converted pretty much everything you need to play **Battledroids** in **Steel Rift**.