Total Warfare - This is the most current, up-to-date version of the rules. It has everything you need to play with 'Mechs and vehicles, and even infantry and ASFs if you prefer. It is a fully integrated, comprehensive rulebook. (Of course, if you prefer to keep using the old rules, things haven't changed all that much. The new record sheets are still 98% compatible with the old rules.)

Aerospace fighters. The ASF rules used to be separate - AeroTech and AeroTech 2 - but their rules are covered in the core rule book now.

I said Total Warfare covers 'Mechs, vehicles, infantry, and ASFs, but it actually covers even more - conventional aircraft, Industrial 'Mechs, protomechs, VTOL aircraft (like helicoptors), WIGE aircraft, battle armor infantry (like Clan Elementals), and possibly a few more categories I'm forgetting. It is very comprehensive.

It depends on your point of view. For many fans of the Succession War era, the removal and/or graphical redesign of the "unseen" mechs was a pretty big deal. I myself liked many of the Studio Nue designs, but didn't find their graphical representation to be critical to the game. Great graphic design helps immerse the player in the game, especially when you're using the miniatures, but it's not like the only mechs that looked cool were the Studio Nue "unseen."

It depends on your point of view. For many fans of the Succession War era, the removal and/or graphical redesign of the "unseen" mechs was a pretty big deal. I myself liked many of the Studio Nue designs, but didn't find their graphical representation to be critical to the game. Great graphic design helps immerse the player in the game, especially when you're using the miniatures, but it's not like the only mechs that looked cool were the Studio Nue "unseen."

If you already have a pretty good grasp of the game, you'll find the current rules to be similar enough to start back up with ease. There have been some tweaks here and there, but for the most part, all of the changes have been welcome improvements to correct imbalance or to make things scientifically and technologically more realistic.

I always recommend picking up Classic Battletech: Total Warfare, preferably the Catalyst Game Labs reprint over the FanPro version as the FanPro version had misprints and errata. Most of the brand new copies you'll find for sale are the CGL version, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

Some would recommend picking up an Introductory Box Set, such as the latest 25th Anniversary version, but given your prior experience, you might feel you'll be paying for stuff you don't need. The plastic mechs in these Intro sets aren't horrible. They're better than the paper standups used in prior releases, yet not as detailed as some of the metal miniatures. Just take the time to clean them up before painting and you'll be fine, i.e., trim the flash and wash them in mild dish soap to remove the mold release oils. The intro set also comes with record sheets for all of the included mechs, a mounted hexmap and Quickstart/Intro rules.

The one thing I don't like about the Intro sets is how they introduce new players to the game. They begin with just mechs, which is fine, but they ease people into heat and ammo tracking. While this helps avoid new players feeling overwhelmed, it can also leave players with a false impression of what the game is like and let's face it, new players will make a snap judgement after that first game, possibly giving up on a game they might otherwise grow to like after introducing the rest of the normal rules, as well as combined arms tactics through the introduction of tanks and battle armor. So be aware that for you, the Quickstart and Intro rules are probably going to feel like training wheels on a Harley Davidson.

So the current game rules have been released in stages via a collection of hard back books. The books are as follows:

1. Total Warfare (Basic rules for Mechs, Land, Air and Sea Vehicles, and Battle Armor/Standard Troops.)

2. Techmanual (Construction rules for every unit type in the game, including Mechs, as well as more advanced equipment.)

3. Tactical Operations (Even more advanced equipment, but also includes advanced rules for local and planetwide atmospheric and terrain conditions. Want to play a game on a lava field, immersed in hurricane conditions? This is your book.)

4. Strategic Operations (Takes things beyond planets with advanced Aerospace stuff, introduces the rules for Battleforce, for grander scaled games, maintenance, repair, salvage and customization, along with the revised miniature rules, aka hexless games on 3d terrain.)

5. A Time of War (The new RPG rules, which replace all previous incarnations of "Mechwarrior". Indispensable if you want to personalize your Mechwarriors and role-play what happens when your warrior is out of his cockpit and off the battlefield.)

6. Interstellar Operations (Yet to be released. Where Tactical Ops focuses on individual planets and their conditions, and Strategic Ops gets off of the planet, but stays within the context of a Solar System, Interstellar Ops is supposed to take things from a Galactic, System to System perspective.)

I use the first 3 books constantly. Strat Ops and the RPG are nice when you want to expand things beyond a series of individual games between relatively ambiguous forces.

I've posted some helpful hints for beginners in the BT forums here before. The links are extremely helpful though and I highly recommend checking them all out. Rather than type them all out, just click HERE to go the post directly.

Edit: When I began typing, there hadn't been a single reply yet made. I typed so much that a fully-developed thread sprung up!

*cough*I have all the unseen in metal*cough*

*cough*I have all the unseen in metal*cough*

Nice.
I have some in metal, some in plastic from some of the old Plastech and base game box sets. Others have eluded me for some time. I'm still looking for an affordable Stone Rhino/Behemoth. Yes, I know it's not one of the classic unseen, but it's unseen nonetheless.

One of these days I'm going to have to take a pic of all my mechs, but I just got done dismantling and stripping them with Simple Green. Many of my mechs looked disappointing to me since they were glued and painted years ago when I wasn't so concerned with how they looked. Now that my skills have improved and my tastes refined, I wanted to go back and do them a bit of justice.

Are you looking for a BattleDroids Behemoth or a 3055 Behemoth? The BattleDroids one is worth a fortune and you'll probably never find one cheap. If you are just looking for the 3055 Behemoth (the one on the cover of the original TRO 3055), you shouldn't have much trouble buying or trading for one over at Lords of the Battlefield, especially if you don't mind doing a little work on the arms. The arms were notoriously fragile and it usually isn't too hard to score a great deal on one with broken arms, as long as you don't mind pinning them back together.

You know, for as much as I love Battletech and spend money on it, I've never actually been to LotB. Perhaps I should.

Re: the Behemoth, I've seen two Battledroids era Behemoths get auctioned on eBay in the past 3 months. I think both went for $100+, but I was shocked to see that many change hands in such short time. As far as the 3055 mech goes, I keep seeing ones with broken arms, but avoided them. Perhaps it's time I just bit the bullet and break out my pin vise.

On a related note: Does anyone know what's up with the classicbattletech.com website?

It's been moved to http://bg.battletech.com/
The CBT site was redirecting for a while. I'm not sure why it isn't any more.

Truth be told the older 3rd Edition ruleset works just fine. If you have your old Compendium and 3025/3026/2750 TRO's and a few mapsheets, you're more than ready to tackle whatever scenario you want. I myself want to get Total Warfare but I just can't justify the costs right now.

I wish I had a regular BT group.