I owned & read this book when the only way to play with 'Mechs was to get the Miniatures and tabletop together to do battle with your friends. Ardath SHOULD have written many more. The characters of Hanse Davion, Archon Kristina Stiener and the rest of the Inner Sphere Houses, the warfare and intrigue made the miniatures games that much more enjoyable. Though it has been called "outdated" and not really connected, the Whole Modern Era of Mechwarrior and all these Successors to/of the Clan invasion (liberation according to the Clanner View as the progeny of General Kerensky..)would not exist without works such as this. Not to mention the Original Box Set with the paper card miniatures FASA first published in the mid '80's. Current "History" Does Not exist with out a Foundation to spring from. This book should not have been the sibling-less offering it had to become when FASA started to die. If Anyone would truely like to understand where the Lave Gun in MechAssault on the Original XBOX, or any of the other amazing LosTech advances, brought back by the Clans,NAIS and many others came from, this book and the original Compendium and Tech Readouts from the FASA years, would give them the understanding of ComStar, The KF drive and the rest of The Star Leagues' Pre-History, The Foundation, as it were, Of MechWarrior Online, MEKTEK and all the other platform/offerings available in the universe of Battle/Mech Warriors.
