Total Warfare is the first all new rules book for Classic Battletech in the last ten years. Up until now The Master Rules has been king of the hill... is it time for a new king? Maybe not...

From the moment we recieved the book, we were dazzled by the color photos and the delivery of the information. The price was reasonable too (coming in at $39.99 USD) since Wiz Kids would not provide a copy for review.

Hardcover was a big bonus. All of the previous books: The Rules Of Warfare, The Compendium, and Master Rules were all softcover. Time is not very kind to soft cover books that get considerable use. The entire book is illustrated with pictures of 'mechs on beautiful 3 dimensional terrain which makes the mind flurry with ideas as you flip through it.

We liked the small inserts of story line that Wiz Kids included to try and liven up the Battletech universe. It's no longer a mere rulesbook. Its an encompassing look at the Battletech in all its aspects. Although at times it did seem like filler for the book since all aspects of construction were removed.

All of the pages are a nice glossy yet light weight paper. Very nice to the touch and they flip easily. It seems to us that they'd be spill and stain resistant too since the paper itself has the outer coating to protect it.

The rules layout on the other hand was not so nice. It seems that everytime we needed to look up a rule in the book we'd have the misfortune of finding out that the index had forgotten to include the specific entry. And by the time we had actually located the rules we needed, we would be required to flip to two or three sepereate different sections of the book to locate what we needed. On the other hand when we did find what we were looking for the visual examples in the book were extremely helpful and the right hand sidebar always let you know which section you were in.

Some of the new rules that we've noticed to be different in the book are great changes indeed; like the new infantry rules, new vehicle hit location tables, or the new system of specialty ammo's. And thank god they got rid of all of the ridiculous Maximum Tech weapons that no one liked anyway (hyper velocity anything... or xxl engines)

So not all is bad. The back of the book does include a nice terrain making section (bonus) and a section on kitbashing and painting, but it lacks the construction section for mechs and vehicles. The fact that this will comprise a whole second 40 dollar book seems unnecessary to us as it has always been a single chapter in previous Battletech books.

Overall we have to give it 3 1/2 marauders out of 5. For overall clumbsyness of the rules and 25 awkward pages of errata. We have to give Wiz Kids a big thumbs down for customer service but hope that the future will be bright with Catalyst Game Labs taking over. Total Warfare seems best suited for those who have already played the game or know someone who has already played the game not the unknowing novice. Verdict: no need to ditch your CBT: Master Rules just yet....