This (see previous post) was only my second game of Battletech Alpha Strike. Since there were three of us we played a (somewhat unbalanced) 1v1v1 game - I lost horribly, destroyed twice by a very fast Fire Moth (which only has 2HP total!) that get getting into my rear arc and one-shotting my mechs while I unadvisedly concentrated on the Atlas. I did managed a massive 10-damage shot into the rear of an Atlas with my Nova (fully overheated for 4 bonus damage!) but the eventual winner was the third player who managed to snipe the Fire Moth and catch the Atlas in a pincer movement.
Now that I've got the hang of basic Alpha Strike I'll try adding in the pilot special abilities and artillery support rules. Might even look at the "regular" battletech ruleset so see how much more fiddly that is.
in reply to @notinventedhere's post:
The Nova (prime) is a toasty beast in both, at least.
CBT you roll for everything, essentially. Each weapon, track heat per shot, ammunition, counting off the armour on hit, etc. Obviously takes a lot longer, but you get some great stories of heroic Golden BB moments (or catastrophic pilot rolls) out of it that you don't really get in AS. That said, anything much bigger than lance/star vs lance/star, you probably want to run in AS rather than CBT.
"roll for everything" - yeah that's definitely the impression I got from my very brief look over the rules. AS is perfect for playing with my kid (who'll probably be my main opponent!) just for the streamlined rules but I'd like to try full BT with one of my more wargame-minded friends at some point.
The version of the rules in the Game of Armored Combat set (if that's how you started with AS?) is stripped down to cover 90% of all cases and is probably the easiest way to play classic afaik.
Anyway - have fun regardless!