Rating:    Reviewed by:   David "MacAttack" McCulloch

The Succession Wars  FASA 1987 ISBN 0-931787-72-6   The Product:  Succession Wars is a board game set in the BattleTech universe of 3025. Play takes place on a map of the Inner Sphere that is divided up onto irregular interlocking regions. Two or more players control the forces of the Successor States in a grand bid to win the Succession Wars.  Each House is represented on the map by a colored region (red for Kurita, Green for Liao and so on). Counters approximating the Regiments of the Successor States and personalities are employed in a Risk-Like game system.  A major difference is that movement is controlled by the use of Jumpship counters, which have a limited range and carrying capacity. New units and Jumpships are created at manufacturing facilities, and destroyed units can be rebuilt too.  Everything costs money though, and this is represented in the form of a pile of C-Bills. Each player gets more C-Bills in the form of taxes from regions they control. This is a two edged sword naturally, as the more you control, the more thinly stretched your forces become.  Money is not only for building units, but also for hiring Mercenary units, bribing personalities on the other side, or even ComStar (though the results of this are random, and may result in them turning round and placing you under interdict).  A technology ladder influences the cost and effectiveness of combat units. As a house develops (or recovers) technology, units become cheaper to produce and gain additional combat benefits, Jumpships can travel greater distances and even HPG technology can be gained. Chaos and confusion are introduced in the form of a deck of game cards that can be played at various points in the game (including a "Get Out of Interdiction Free" card).  Victory can be achieved by capturing all of your opponent's territory or their capital and all personalities.  The Good:  The game does a good job of capturing the flavor of the 3025 BattleTech universes. Another nice feature is the option of playing the 1st Succession War, with the Personality counters being double-sided to give the notable figures of that era for each House. Interestingly, the Mercenary Personalities are appear to be immortal. The counters are excellently produced, with most of the well-known units represented. The character portraits are very nicely executed and the C-Bill notes are sooo cute! The Bad: The set-up can be time consuming getting all the correct units in their initial starting regions, and then placing the ones that are free-floating. It is not a game you can whip out for an hour. Although the game is for two to five people, in reality it plays best with two OR five people. With two players you often get the same sort of grouping as in the "real" 4th Succession War, but any other balanced unions just do not work out well until you reach the one player, one house set-up. The map is rather flimsy, and can tear easily. When play gets hectic it can be easy to blow the game by jogging all the counters, resulting in the declaration of real hostilities when nobody can agree on where that Sword of Light should be. I have yet to find anybody willing to accept my C-Bills. If you have ever played Monopoly, you have probably run into different interpretations of the rules. Unfortunately the same can happen with with Succession Wars. One hole in the rules can occur if a player attacks (and captures) Terra. This immediately places them under complete interdict, but can boost their House technological level to the point where they have HPG capabilities. The rules do not cover whether the interdict is still in place under such circumstances. Continuity: The brief historical introduction is a retelling of the established 3025 background. As such no gaffs are present. In some instances the number of counters provided for a multi-regiment unit do not match the game universe i.e. only three Wolf's Dragoons counters, but such discrepancies are obviously for game balance and so are easy to forgive. If playing the 1st Succession War option, Wolf's Dragoons should not really be available. Mercenary units introduced in the early years of the BattleTech game are not represented, so No Grey Death Legion, Snord's Irregulars or Kell Hounds. Any house unit introduced after the House Books were published are also not included. Obviously the game has nothing connected with the Clan Invasion either. Conclusion: Succession Wars is a good game, and it is easy to imagine that a session played at FASA HQ was the inspiration for the way the universe developed until the Clan Invasion (although things were more carefully planned than that). Where it falls down is in the long set-up and playtime required and the disappointing quality of the map. In some respects it would have been nice to see an updated version for the modern BattleTech universe, but that would be hard to implement because of the way it has evolved. With the plot now progressing through the novels, a game on this grand scale no longer fits well into the BattleTech product line. Because of the rather narrow focus of Succession Wars it will not appeal to all players and so only gets 2 ½ Timber Wolves. Now if you want to rewrite history and play a game on this grand scale, that is another matter...   Counters C-Bills