I have every single Mechwarrior game that ever came out. I also have every single Battletech book that ever came out. I also have 4 Technical readouts. And I used to have 48+ minis before I traded them all for Eldar stuff.
Man, those were the good days....
Mech 3 [with expansion] was the best out of them all. Mech 4 was a nightmare.....
I perferred using completely customised mechs. I mostly used a Ha-Otoko [Bladed Man] from a Madcat with two LRM 20s and two LRM 10s with buttloads of ammo and equipment like artemis, beagle probes, AMS, and a whole other bunch of crap. I could take out entire stars of assault mechs before I could see them. It would take me half an hour and over 20 mechs before I ran out of ammo!
Other notable mechs were Shredder [Jenner with Ultra AC 20], and BeamsMaster 1 and two [Nova with 10+ small pulse lasers and Warhawk with two PPCs and 10 medium pulse lasers].