About BattleTech Hub

I'm Dave. I've been playing BattleTech since 1997 and I built this site because the resource I wanted didn't exist.

How I Got Here

It started in high school with the RPG. A mate brought the sourcebooks in and we started running campaigns between classes — MechWarriors for hire, scraping together C-Bills between contracts, arguing about whether the Marauder or the Warhammer was the better heavy. I read every novel I could find. Grey Death Legion, Blood of Kerensky, the whole lot. The universe got under my skin in a way that most science fiction doesn't, because it felt like history — messy, complicated, full of people making understandable decisions that led to catastrophic outcomes.

The video games came next. MechWarrior 2 is still one of the best gaming experiences I've had. MechCommander, MW3, MW4 and all the expansions, MechWarrior Online, HBS BattleTech, MW5 and Clans. I've played all of them, completed most of them, and spent an embarrassing amount of time in all of them.

The Smoke Jaguar Story

My favourite faction is Clan Smoke Jaguar, which I know is a polarising position. Here's why.

Back in my MW3 days I was playing in a serious online league — the kind where your faction fought other factions for territory, planets granted resources, and everything mattered. I joined Clan Smoke Jaguar. Before they'd let me fight for them I had to go through a Trial — demonstrate I was good enough to earn my place. I passed. Worked my way up through the ranks, more Trials at each step, exactly like actual Clan customs.

Eventually I earned a Bloodname: Nishoko. Pretty sure it was entirely made up by whoever ran the league, but it was mine. My first Hotmail account was BloodAsp_NS — BloodAsp for my favourite 'Mech, NS for Nishoko. That account lasted years longer than it should have because changing it would have felt like abandoning something.

The Smoke Jaguars get written off as the arrogant Clan that deserved to die, and there's truth in that. But they were also the most committed to what the Clans were supposed to be — warriors first, last, and only. I respect the purity of that even while recognising it was their downfall. There's something tragic about an organisation that held to its principles so completely that it couldn't survive contact with a universe that didn't share them.

The Blood Asp

One hundred tonnes of Clan assault 'Mech, two Improved Heavy Gauss Rifles, and enough firepower to end most engagements in a handful of shots. The Blood Asp is the Smoke Jaguar totem 'Mech and the reason my online callsign was what it was. It's not subtle. It doesn't need to be.

Why This Site

I started playing tabletop BattleTech properly a few years ago after decades of the video games, and the resources available for new players were... mixed. Good wiki in Sarna, good community on Reddit, but no single place that explained things clearly for someone coming in fresh. No decent lance builder. Articles that were either too brief or buried in jargon.

So I built what I wanted. The lance builder is the main thing — it took a while to get right and I'm still improving it. The articles are written the way I'd explain things to someone across the table. The lore sections reflect thirty-plus years of obsession with this universe.

If something's wrong, missing, or could be better — let me know. I'm also over on YouTube at BattleTech Down Under if you prefer video.

Other Games

For what it's worth: I've played most of the other major wargames too. Warhammer 40K and Fantasy, Infinity, Star Wars Legion, X-Wing, Dystopian Wars. They're all good games. BattleTech is the one I keep coming back to. There's something about the scale — four 'Mechs, two hours, every decision mattering — that the bigger games can't quite replicate.