Verdict: For new players and completionists only. Caveat emptor.

Conceptually, this book is supposed to be the companion volume to the new BattleMech Manual, giving new players both an overview and a grab bag of BattleMechs and nothing else from some of the more common and less complex older game eras. TRO:SW is the new TRO:3039, only with less width. The product description refers to this, and the intro fluff of TRO:SW gives somewhat of a more narrative explanation for this.

The new content in this product boils down to a page of intro (with some implications for the next game era), the entry for the GLH-1D Galahad, as well as new-ish art for the Flea, Banshee and a handful of Newseen. The rest is a potpourri of copy-pasted BattleMechs entries from the games history that were chosen for different reasons by CGL.

So, is this product worth your money? That will depend on if you're a player new to the Battletech or not.

A new player gets a nice, but incomplete overview on a variety of BattleMechs from different game eras. The inclusion of artwork from three decades of Battletech will feel inconsistent and jarring to them - just compare Duane Loose versus Anthony Scroggins, or look up other comanies production values. Some of the fluff has similar problems, since it still reflects the different points in time for which it was written originally.

Us old hands...? Yeah. It can be pretty hard to justify the 10 bucks, not the mention the the original 40.