So the boxes are actually becoming a reality? I was hoping for an alpha strike starter too or that a starter would include unseens like a marauder and warhammer.
Guess I shouldn't have started selling my sealed unseens on ebay... if the boxed sets get released I'm back in
Whilst I really just play Megamek these days, I do use Infantry, although for Mercenaries they're a really inefficient unit type especially when you look at how much they cost to recruit and train and their ongoing wages. That said, I use them for fluff reasons as much as anything else, my infantry regiments are the guys and girls who will be manning check points and doing foot patrols or house-to-house searches which are not roles I'd typically want to risk my mechwarriors or tank crews doing (Not least of which because I'd lose nearly a battalion's worth of mechwarriors to cover the same ground as a single infantry platoon).
That said I have had some good results using Infantry, when given decent transports and properly supported with tanks/mechs, artillery or aerospace fighters and equipped with field guns they can be a fairly potent defensive unit and in a campaign as an air-mobile unit they can give you a very fast force to secure objectives ahead of your main force, although there you have to sacrifice most of your AT capability unless you heavily support them with massed artillery and VTOL gunships. Yellowjackets are great for this but are slow for VTOLs so will cost you a lot of your speed advantage, Warriors are faster but carry a much weaker punch. I've not used Anti-mech Infantry outside of Battlearmour units since they're just way too expensive to train and far too slow and fragile in combat.
I use the term Infantry to mean the PBI (Foot, motorised & Jump platoons), I know there was a separate entry for mechanised infantry but personally I preferred to mechanise my units by allocating them APCs or AIFVs of some sort (Badgers worked well for me, allocate a platoon of Manticores or similar to support a mechanised Infantry Battalion and you get a reasonably effective fighting force) and I realise that there are specialised types like Combat Engineers, I've never used Engineers on the tabletop myself as they're way too expensive to recruit and actually risk in battle in all but the most desperate circumstances.
Battlearmour I'd usually refer to as such to clearly distinguish it from conventional Infantry. Generally speaking though as with the true footsloggers they're fairly fragile and for a mercenary force and they're expensive to maintain and keep paid, although admittedly to a lesser extent than their unarmoured counterparts.
I've not yet used Protomechs, but they seem very much like a half-way house between BA and Light mechs and I'd similarly expect them to have similar drawbacks on the tabletop. When my own mercenaries get to that point in game terms if I got any Protomechs I'd probably allocate them as an upgrade to a Battlearmour unit rather than issuing them to a Battlemech one.
Somewhat counter-intuitively though for a mercenary unit even though they're supposed to be the pinnacle of military technology, Battlemechs are by far the most cost effective units to field, assuming you don't get them repeatedly shot out from under you and need to completely replace them.
Well, I consider the Foot to be PBI, while the Jump, Motorized, and Mechanised to be their own things, though they are as resilient.
Battle Armor is even listed as their own thing within the game, but they are still Infantry, just Heavy.
Protomechs are definitely not Infantry. Ultra-light Mechs is more appropriate. Unfortunately, they are limited by fluff. The requirements to even pilot them involves either electronic tattoos which will drive you mad or require you having your limbs cut off to fit in to the cockpit. Only the most fanatic Clanner or Domini fit this definition. It would be hard for a Mercenary unit to be carrying them because of that, and that's not even considering the scarcity of the equipment.
The requirements to even pilot them involves either electronic tattoos
IIRC aren't these based on the "Enhanced Imaging" tattoos/rules initially in the 1st Somerset Strikers sourcebook?
Which was based off the TV show, yes, sort of. They aren't based off of them, they literally ARE them. Which is one reason why failed Clan Aerospace Pilots who wanted a path to glory as a warrior were convinced to go through the life-shortening procedure of installing them.
I got into Battletech thanks to purchasing the boxed set around the time the TV series was aired over here, I honestly can't remember now which came first for me but whilst my initial experience with the 3rd Edition game gave me my fondness for the Crusader in 3025 games, the TV show meant I almost fell in love with the Madcat. I think that I definitely experienced Clan-Shock first hand is some testament to playing pure Inner Sphere prior to any exposure to Clan Tech.
I'm glad the TV series was retconned as an in-universe Holovid show though, plotholes abounded...
simonr1978 wrote: I got into Battletech thanks to purchasing the boxed set around the time the TV series was aired over here, I honestly can't remember now which came first for me but whilst my initial experience with the 3rd Edition game gave me my fondness for the Crusader in 3025 games, the TV show meant I almost fell in love with the Madcat. I think that I definitely experienced Clan-Shock first hand is some testament to playing pure Inner Sphere prior to any exposure to Clan Tech.
I was first introduced via the Atlas model in high school, and it fired my imagination, but I never did much with it then. Later when I was looking for new books to read in the library I came across the Jade Phoenix trilogy, and I started getting stuck in getting the Compendium, TROs, and box sets . That series helped me fall in love with the Summoner/Thor and gave me a soft spot for the the Jade Falcon Clan.
Over all, though my favorite model is the Thunderbolt, and I find more kindred spirits with the Federated Suns. I can't say who my favorite Clan is, though, I find things I like with the Ghost Bears and Cloud Cobra. When I got my Directorate for Firestorm Armada, I considered who they were and thought that patterning them after a Clan would be fun and interesting. I started painting them up as Cloud Cobra, and was thinking about doing the Ground Forces as Hell's Horses (due to lack of Mechs), but LGS closed and I got laid off.
simonr1978 wrote: I'm glad the TV series was retconned as an in-universe Holovid show though, plotholes abounded...
They did include a character here and there as a side note in some of the books, but the storied universe was too bloody for a children's show like that one was.
Elbows wrote: I know it's in fitting with the Battletech scale/weight thing, but 400 tons is borderline laughable (this is not a harsh critique, but we have main battle tanks that roll around at 70 tons and are...1/200th the size of an Imperator if not smaller)
Correct, the only Imperial Titan that fits into Battletech would be the Warhound, and that pushes the design rules. At 400tons and the speed it goes at it would need large naval or dropship engine rules.
For larger Titans you would have to use large naval construction rules, then translate armour and hit locations back to mech size.
In either case you would need to amalgamate weaponry into single titan mounts, which is what happened for 1st edition epic anyway. Gatling cannon = 6+ Ac10's, plasma blastgun = 6+ PPC's plus bonus capacitors.
Drop a Titan Maniple in a Battletech warzone and you will have some very freaked out mechwarriors.
Elbows wrote: I know it's in fitting with the Battletech scale/weight thing, but 400 tons is borderline laughable (this is not a harsh critique, but we have main battle tanks that roll around at 70 tons and are...1/200th the size of an Imperator if not smaller)
Correct, the only Imperial Titan that fits into Battletech would be the Warhound, and that pushes the design rules. At 400tons and the speed it goes at it would need large naval or dropship engine rules.
For larger Titans you would have to use large naval construction rules, then translate armour and hit locations back to mech size.
In either case you would need to amalgamate weaponry into single titan mounts, which is what happened for 1st edition epic anyway. Gatling cannon = 6+ Ac10's, plasma blastgun = 6+ PPC's plus bonus capacitors.
Drop a Titan Maniple in a Battletech warzone and you will have some very freaked out mechwarriors.
It would be a fun story
My idea is to use the rules as a base but ignore construction restrictions - so assign a move rate (biut don;t bother with engine rating), have locations as normal etc.
My idea is to use the rules as a base but ignore construction restrictions - so assign a move rate (biut don;t bother with engine rating), have locations as normal etc.
Not needed, once you get away from mech vehicle and aerospace rules everything handles engines as a fixed % of mass per point of movement. So speed/mass curve is linear. normally its about 6% mass per point of movement. So a 5/8 Warhound titan needs an engine weighing 30% of the mass of the titan. Reaver 4/6 and Warlord 3/5 and Imperator 2/3. Titans are not slow you might add +1 to each category.
Knights are heavy-assault mechs. The weaponry might need a work around
What are good for conversion are things like Leman Russ. 55tons 4/6 move, AC10, 2 medium lasers and an MG fits right into Battletech. Baneblades make for good Battletech vehicles. AC20, UltraAC10 (main gun), AC2 (coax), 2 medium lasers and 4 MG, 3/5 move for 100 tons.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I've only given up on one 'Mech and never went back to it: The second version of the Blood Asp.
At one point that thing went sailing across the room I was so pissed at it.
A whole lot of IWM's mechs are too fething fiddly, and really, really annoying to build. I might have said some harsh words about Infinity miniatures, but at least CB has improved...
I used to have two of the original Marauder IIC; I think they might have been a bit knock-kneed, but the main problem I had was that the limbs were really spindly and the PPC modules on the arms kept snapping off.
I have the same issue with the phoenix project Warhammer. PPC barrels won't stick to the arms, arms won't stick to the mech, and the elbows are separate pieces for some reason.
Not an official BTech release, but Death From Above Miniatures, who ran a Kickstarter campaign for MechCommander inspired buildings at BTech scale now have a webstore to sell the Kickstarter products to anyone.
They've done faction versions for various buildings, so if you want more Kurita or Marik-flavoured buildings, they're there as well, plus tons of stuff that's straight out of MechCommander.
Some examples...
Spoiler:
An example starter set:
Repair Bay:
Resource Bunker (straight outta MechCommander):
Aux Power (another building right out of MechCommander):
For unseens, you could just pick up a Robotech Tactics set, and you'll get 2 Warhammers, 2 Riflemen, 5 Wasp/Stingers and 5 LAMs for ~$45. It has a Marauder too, but I think the scale is off on that one.
semifraki wrote: For unseens, you could just pick up a Robotech Tactics set, and you'll get 2 Warhammers, 2 Riflemen, 5 Wasp/Stingers and 5 LAMs for ~$45. It has a Marauder too, but I think the scale is off on that one.
The cosmic circuitousness of this idea makes me cackle uncontrollably.
H.B.M.C. wrote: My mistake. I did not realise that. Thanks for the info.
Looks like the scale of the Warhammer (and therefore the Rifleman, I assume) are bang on for Battletech.
I take it this never came out though:
Shame, as a plastic Archer is one of the two 'Mechs I want most (and a plastic Rifleman).
I think I have about 8 of each myself. They end up looking decent-ish, but... well, the sprues are not exactly the best ever, and the parts amount for a single mini are ridiculous for the detail you get.
My LGS just got in the Battletech sets so I was able to score the full sized one.
I like it, the mechs are decent quality and I was surprised to see how little the base rules had changed since I had last played. Nice maps included too.
nobody wrote: My LGS just got in the Battletech sets so I was able to score the full sized one.
I like it, the mechs are decent quality and I was surprised to see how little the base rules had changed since I had last played. Nice maps included too.
The base rules haven't changed since Total Warfare in 2004, and even then they didn't change a ton. Equipment changes are far more common than rules changes.
nobody wrote: My LGS just got in the Battletech sets so I was able to score the full sized one.
I like it, the mechs are decent quality and I was surprised to see how little the base rules had changed since I had last played. Nice maps included too.
The base rules haven't changed since Total Warfare in 2004, and even then they didn't change a ton. Equipment changes are far more common than rules changes.
The last time I played (and seriously looked into the rules) pre-dated that version. This was the last rulebook I had. I've kinda kept up to date with the fluff though.
nobody wrote: My LGS just got in the Battletech sets so I was able to score the full sized one.
I like it, the mechs are decent quality and I was surprised to see how little the base rules had changed since I had last played. Nice maps included too.
The base rules haven't changed since Total Warfare in 2004, and even then they didn't change a ton. Equipment changes are far more common than rules changes.
The last time I played (and seriously looked into the rules) pre-dated that version. This was the last rulebook I had. I've kinda kept up to date with the fluff though.
It still isn't that much different. The biggest difference between those editions is probably partial cover rules.
Nurglitch wrote: Is it still -3 to hit and only hitting on the punch-location chart?
Nope:
Attacks against a target with partial cover apply a +1 Target Number modifier. In addition, if the hit location roll indicates a leg,
the attack strikes the cover instead. In that event, if the partial cover is a building, the hit damages the building; otherwise, the attack
does not deal damage
I can;t buy the physical copy over here so bought the pdf
Does anyone know which Technical Readout/Record Sheets are (a) still compatible with the newest ruleset and (b) include the Unseen mechs like the Marauder and Archer? I'm looking forward to getting back into the games after a 30-odd year absence, and would like the use the RTT plastics that I picked up...
JoshInJapan wrote: Does anyone know which Technical Readout/Record Sheets are (a) still compatible with the newest ruleset and (b) include the Unseen mechs like the Marauder and Archer? I'm looking forward to getting back into the games after a 30-odd year absence, and would like the use the RTT plastics that I picked up...
As far as I can see all the old designs are eactly the same and still current - just sometimes with different art - the Unseen are all listed in the new rulebook
JoshInJapan wrote: Does anyone know which Technical Readout/Record Sheets are (a) still compatible with the newest ruleset and (b) include the Unseen mechs like the Marauder and Archer? I'm looking forward to getting back into the games after a 30-odd year absence, and would like the use the RTT plastics that I picked up...
As far as I can see all the old designs are eactly the same and still current - just sometimes with different art - the Unseen are all listed in the new rulebook
H.B.M.C. wrote: Either that's a huge Jenner or a tiny Stalker.
Kind of tiny Stalker, yeah
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JoshInJapan wrote: Does anyone know which Technical Readout/Record Sheets are (a) still compatible with the newest ruleset and (b) include the Unseen mechs like the Marauder and Archer? I'm looking forward to getting back into the games after a 30-odd year absence, and would like the use the RTT plastics that I picked up...
All 99% compatible, as far as I know.
As to current TROs, I think the latest 3025 had some of the unseens, but not all of them.
JoshInJapan wrote: Does anyone know which Technical Readout/Record Sheets are (a) still compatible with the newest ruleset and (b) include the Unseen mechs like the Marauder and Archer? I'm looking forward to getting back into the games after a 30-odd year absence, and would like the use the RTT plastics that I picked up...
As far as I can see all the old designs are eactly the same and still current - just sometimes with different art - the Unseen are all listed in the new rulebook
Really? I'll have to take another look.
The Manual even has the quirks for all the Mechs - eg the Marauder gets:
JoshInJapan wrote: Does anyone know which Technical Readout/Record Sheets are (a) still compatible with the newest ruleset and (b) include the Unseen mechs like the Marauder and Archer? I'm looking forward to getting back into the games after a 30-odd year absence, and would like the use the RTT plastics that I picked up...
The designs are still valid, it's just the artwork that isn't.
I have a copy of the original TRO 3025 (my pride and well read joy), which has the original artwork for the Unseen.
The later version of the book TRO 3025 Revised completely removes the Unseen. Never to be spoken of, with some Star League era mechs thrown in, in some kind of attempt to make up for the loss.
The latest incarnation of this TRO is TRO 3039. Same tech level as the previous ones, same mechs as 3025 Revised but with a section titled Project Phoenix (not to be confused with the Project Phoenix TRO...) containing the Unseen from the original TRO 3025, but with zero artwork for them.
All of these TROs use Level 1 tech exclusively (old terminology, I know, but it works for me), so are just as legit as anything else.
I scaled some of the stuff vey out of whack >_> (the aforementioned Stalkers and that giant Griffin for starters), but even with some printing errors I'm quite happy with the stuff, and I'll just paint as battle damage what got borked:
I scaled some of the stuff vey out of whack >_> (the aforementioned Stalkers and that giant Griffin for starters), but even with some printing errors I'm quite happy with the stuff, and I'll just paint as battle damage what got borked:
Mmmpi wrote: Any chance of me getting you to print me some?
Seeing as I'd have to send it to you it wouldn't be very cost effective, TBH
I printed those with an Anycubic Photon, that currently you can get for about 370 euros, and a liter of resin costs about 50 (and if used correctly, a liter goes a long way). I'd advice you to either get one (or something on that range of price/capability) or get someone local to do it for you.
Yesterday the Tyrant's Tercio reinforced mercenary company did some training exercises in the planet they are currently garrisoning. We decided to get an UAV out and take some pictures.
The planet surface
Lance 1 -Urbanmech, Hunchback, Grashopper & Victor
I have a bunch of Ral Partha Battlemechs from 1998 that are needing a good home. If anyone is interested drop me a PM for one or more of the following:
Annihilator
Bushwhacker
Orion
Owen's
Akuma
Rakshasa
3x Raptor
Beowulf
Bishamon
Men Shen
Ebay would suggest that £10 plus postage would be fair for any of them, except for the Raptors at £10 for the 3 together.
H.B.M.C. wrote: What are those maps???!!!???
What are those buildings???!!!???
Those are just the product of a man who easily obsesses over terrain projects and knows a bit of 3d modelling and photoshop, whose friend owns a 3d printer and was nice enough to print some prototypes for him xD
So I'm trying to plan out how I want to paint my battletech minis. Should I just paint all my IS minis from the color of any house of my choosing, and then all my clan minis (when the kickstarter delivers) form the clan of my choosing, and then just hope I never run a game where clan mechs and IS mechs would be mixed? lol. Or should I paint them all the same color scheme Lore be damned?
balmong7 wrote: So I'm trying to plan out how I want to paint my battletech minis. Should I just paint all my IS minis from the color of any house of my choosing, and then all my clan minis (when the kickstarter delivers) form the clan of my choosing, and then just hope I never run a game where clan mechs and IS mechs would be mixed? lol. Or should I paint them all the same color scheme Lore be damned?
They are your models, and no one is going to care what scheme you used. I've never encountered a BTech player that got upset about the color scheme of the mechs they were playing against. The rules are built into the mechs, based on time period, and Inner Sphere or Clan. While certain Houses/Clans have a preference for certain mechs, the argument could be made that every House/Clan used every mech at some point in their history.
Basically, a color scheme might designate the House/Clan the mech is from, but there is no game effects for it.
balmong7 wrote: So I'm trying to plan out how I want to paint my battletech minis. Should I just paint all my IS minis from the color of any house of my choosing, and then all my clan minis (when the kickstarter delivers) form the clan of my choosing, and then just hope I never run a game where clan mechs and IS mechs would be mixed? lol. Or should I paint them all the same color scheme Lore be damned?
They are your models, and no one is going to care what scheme you used. I've never encountered a BTech player that got upset about the color scheme of the mechs they were playing against. The rules are built into the mechs, based on time period, and Inner Sphere or Clan. While certain Houses/Clans have a preference for certain mechs, the argument could be made that every House/Clan used every mech at some point in their history.
Basically, a color scheme might designate the House/Clan the mech is from, but there is no game effects for it.
The issue I'm having right now is that most of my games will probably be using solely my mechs. I don't have a local community of players, so games will mainly be me trying to get my friends to play using my mini's. Do you guys think it would get confusing if they all had the same paint schemes?
balmong7 wrote: So I'm trying to plan out how I want to paint my battletech minis. Should I just paint all my IS minis from the color of any house of my choosing, and then all my clan minis (when the kickstarter delivers) form the clan of my choosing, and then just hope I never run a game where clan mechs and IS mechs would be mixed? lol. Or should I paint them all the same color scheme Lore be damned?
They are your models, and no one is going to care what scheme you used. I've never encountered a BTech player that got upset about the color scheme of the mechs they were playing against. The rules are built into the mechs, based on time period, and Inner Sphere or Clan. While certain Houses/Clans have a preference for certain mechs, the argument could be made that every House/Clan used every mech at some point in their history.
Basically, a color scheme might designate the House/Clan the mech is from, but there is no game effects for it.
There are some minor optional rules for different units in the old Field Manual series (first published in the late 1990s to early 2000s).
greetings all, just popping in to say hi, been playing CBT since 1987, still play on a regular basis (just got a new player a clan star to get him started)
my primary units-
Inner sphere
.lyran alliance-10th lyran guard
Draconis combine
.2nd swords of light
.2nd deiron regulars
CLAN
.hells horse iota galaxy
Our group plays classic battletech with simplified firing arcs/3d terrain rules, forced withdrawl (to speed up gameplay), max tech level 3 charts for vehicles(to keep them enjoyable to play), old ammo explosion rules for the LOLS, and optional ammo/&ECM rules.
I have way to much old stuff to post anew going back over 10 years unfortunately I was using photobucket before they went sideways so my old blog is pretty much dead., I will post newer stuff here for you all.
Until next time-
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here is one of our recent tables using a mix of terrain from brigade miniatures, old JR miniature terrain, monster apocalypse, ESLO terrain, novus design studios, gale force 9
I highly recommend brigade they have a massive array of items to choose from at reasonable prices
aphyon wrote: here is one of our recent tables using a mix of terrain from brigade miniatures, old JR miniature terrain, monster apocalypse, ESLO terrain, novus design studios, gale force 9
Incredible looking tables. I really want to start adding some 3D stuff to my hex-maps. Need to look into that.
Cool looking stuff. I especially like the inclusion of some of the more obscure 'Mechs, like the Shugenja, Maelstrom and not one but two O-Bakemonos. Then again I suppose you do have a pair of Heweys on the Clan side to face them down. Love the presence of both the old and new Black Pythons.
aphyon wrote: here is one of our recent tables using a mix of terrain from brigade miniatures, old JR miniature terrain, monster apocalypse, ESLO terrain, novus design studios, gale force 9
Incredible looking tables. I really want to start adding some 3D stuff to my hex-maps. Need to look into that.
Cool looking stuff. I especially like the inclusion of some of the more obscure 'Mechs, like the Shugenja, Maelstrom and not one but two O-Bakemonos. Then again I suppose you do have a pair of Heweys on the Clan side to face them down. Love the presence of both the old and new Black Pythons.
aphyon wrote: here is one of our recent tables using a mix of terrain from brigade miniatures, old JR miniature terrain, monster apocalypse, ESLO terrain, novus design studios, gale force 9
Incredible looking tables. I really want to start adding some 3D stuff to my hex-maps. Need to look into that.
Cool looking stuff. I especially like the inclusion of some of the more obscure 'Mechs, like the Shugenja, Maelstrom and not one but two O-Bakemonos. Then again I suppose you do have a pair of Heweys on the Clan side to face them down. Love the presence of both the old and new Black Pythons.
Great stuff.
Where do you see an old Black Python?
the obakemonos are part of the 2nd deirons. since they are mountain fighters it made sense to bring some artillery, but some people hate it when I bring them.
there are quite a few additions I don't have pictured here-damn you battletech-the curse of the cheap armies/lances/stars countered by the huge model line to choose from- including objective units like mobile command tanks, mech recovery vehicles, mobile repair units as well as all the mechs from the new plastic starter set (fantastic deal and great quality), the scorpion, no-dachi, omega superheavy, black knight, fire scorpion and I just started painting the hitosune kozo and the vulture III(the one from the opening of MechWarrior 4 the best looking mad dog ever IMHO).
Just got a star together for a new player who is going snow ravens, expect some battlereport pics in a couple weeks.
here are a few more fun pics
terrain tables-
And my poor poor blood kite who always dies to head shots every single time I play it.
P.S. for some added glory- some classic posters I managed to get ahold of back when it all started-
didi a quick classic 1v1 clans star battle using some mechs and units we don't normally run
hells horse 9th VS nova cats 1st.
the table-
the hells horse side
.tomahawk II
.timberwolf D
.mad dog (d loadout)
.(2) garuda VTOL
.(5) demon tick protomech
.dire wolf H
.nova cat E
.cauldron born d
.stormcrow E
.(2) SM1 tank destroyer (hovercraft)
we bloodied each other pretty good, by the mid point in the game we had both lost 2 mechs. I forced the cauldron to withdraw from damage, and legged the ryoken
in return my timber took a gauss to the face and the mad dog ate an AC 20 to the same location.
At the end I had the tomahawk, 3 protomechs, and 1 VTOL left, he was down to the nova cat, daishi and a single SM1
Them my garuda failed a pilot check and face planted into the ground, switching the balanace of power to the cats. at wich point the horses conceded the field.
Note special rules in play
.ECM ghost imaging
.forced withdrawl
.zelbrigan suspended(the 9th never follows it anyway)
sadly the vulture was out of position most of the game and when he did get to shoot my dice were mad at me. missed with everything firing in the SM1s but the pulse lasers only needing 9s/7s, I think he hit with a single ATM 12 the entire game.
I didn't get much more out of it due to the headshots. the streak LRMS were doing work though. the ryoken was MVP for ATMs he did a lot of damage with them and I just could not kill the darn thing. . I had stripped the armor off of every location including the head (but not the right torso front ) before I took the leg off. even though it turned out that way, it was still good to break out something a bit different,.
I normally run a point of enyos in my star instead of the garudas to fit my hells horse combined arms lore. but that's the joy of classic battletech....so many options, so many great units, building and army is easy and relatively cheep, stopping is hard.
Nice to see your still around by the way, after all those posts(and years) in my warseer battletech blog.
Ah the ammo explosion rules, nothing else quite like a ton of machinegun ammo cooking off. aside from making a suicide mech there is the rapid fire rules in tac ops, but that way MGs generate a ton of heat with increased damage.
However I believe it is the only way to get the new model of the Griffon.
It was intended to be a quick buy in and allow people to try it out without dedicating themselves to the larger "A Game of Armored Combat" (AGOAC). It's fully compatible with that larger box, of course, but some beautiful models of the redesigned classic 55 tonners.
yes the quality is great and the re-release of unseen variants is nice to see(I bought the full starter box, it was a great deal to)- ironwind has also released quite a few remakes of the unseen mostly from the dougrams line.
Not only do you get a Griffin, but you also get a single (double sided) mapsheet that matches up with the aGoAC maps and is totally flat terrain as well as another GDL novella.
Rules wise, it strips out a load of stuff to make it an easy entry set: no heat rules, no terrain, no crits, the armour and inner structure are replaced by a single type of structure per location.
I've got no use for those rules and if I was trying to get someone into the game I'd tell them to think harder and use the standard rules.
I understand why it exists, but it totally kill the immersion. I want pilot tests, ammo explosions, critical hit rolls etc... that part of the fun of the game.
headcapping happens.
I understand why it exists, but it totally kill the immersion. I want pilot tests, ammo explosions, critical hit rolls etc... that part of the fun of the game.
headcapping happens.
Nope.
Quick Strike was the forerunner to Alpha Strike, which is the higher model count, zoomed out mech game set in the Battletech universe. I love Alpha Strike and it really bugs me when people talk about it as if it's Battletech Lite, it's a different game with a different scope, not a watered down version of BT. It has heat rules, crits, different ammo types etc. whilst letting you plop down a dozen mechs on the table.
The rules in the Beginners Set really are a watered down set of the main rules, in old terms, I'd describe it as as level 0.5 rules. As I said, don't really care for it, but if it gets people itching to PPC something in the head, then it's a good thing
there it is, alpha strike is what I was thinking about. not that it really mattered I only bought the box set for the minis. I gave away all the other rules, map sheets and stuff, not really useful since I already own the rules books and we only play 3d terrain rules.
Alpha Strike is kind of a hybrid between the old Battleforce and the miniatures rules from back in the day. It works pretty well, but it's a beast of its own, no doubt.
Some of us don't like it because we prefer our BTech to be super-crunchy and also quite binary (mapsheets remove the ambiguities of movement, range and LOS).
Anyway, as we wait endlessly for our oodles of plastic 'Mechs to show up (March is so far away! ) I've jumped back into HBS's BattleTech PC game.
There are a lot more 'Mechs in it these days (52 in total, with 15 added since launch), and it makes combat far more varied. Took on 10 'Mechs at once without a single duplicate among them, which was quite rare.
Still fighting too many Locusts and Spiders though.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Some of us don't like it because we prefer our BTech to be super-crunchy and also quite binary (mapsheets remove the ambiguities of movement, range and LOS).
Anyway, as we wait endlessly for our oodles of plastic 'Mechs to show up (March is so far away! ) I've jumped back into HBS's BattleTech PC game.
There are a lot more 'Mechs in it these days (52 in total, with 15 added since launch), and it makes combat far more varied. Took on 10 'Mechs at once without a single duplicate among them, which was quite rare.
Still fighting too many Locusts and Spiders though.
There are "Total 3025" and "Total 3065" mods out there that add dozens of mechs, open the whole innes sphere and add many quality of life additions. Now that HBS has added mod support officially, I'm sure they'll getr even handier.
I prefer playing MWLL (MechWarrior living legends) MechWarrior-by fans for fans-mechearrior 3/4 style MMO, free to play with all aspects of BT to use from battle armor to aerospace and artillery, sadly since it is a fan project it has no advertising so the servers are usually only busy on weekends (they do sanctioned chaos march events) and evenings (US timezones).
they even got Duncan fisher to come in and do the voiceovers for the solaris arena maps.
So I've been plotting how I'm going to paint up all my new KS mechs. I don't really know/care about the clan stars so am going to leave them how they are:
Clab Invasion Box Star: Jade Falcon (delta galaxy)
Clan Command Star: Ghost Bear (omicron galaxy)
Clan Heavy Striker Star: Wolf (beta galaxy)
Clan Fire Star: Smoke Jaguar (alpha galaxy)
The IS mech lances look stupid to me so am breaking them up. I got the Command Lance, Direct Fire Lance, and Comstar Command. Those plus a loose Griffin, Wolverine, and Warhammer will be parsed out into Wolf's Dragoons-Black Widow Company Command Lance (circa 3025), and a lance each of Waco Rangers, 1st Lyran Guard, and Death Commandos
The Exterminator, Urbanmechs and random omni-mechs are all unassigned as of this moment. I was wondering if anyone else had started planning out their new lances/stars and if so, what directions they were leaning?
When I made my purchases from the kickstarter, I wanted to get enough both for some variety in Classic BattleTech and have enough to field an Alpha Strike force.
My IS Merc force is currently made up of the AGOAC boxset with two lists - pre/post Helm Data Core - to either play during the Succession Wars or to face the Clans. I'll be adding the IS Battle Lance to that to make a full company. I'll swap the Battlemaster with the Warhammer in the lances to make a Command Lance, which will work with a Heavy Battle Lance and a Recon Lance.
For the Clans, I purchased the Clan Invasion boxset, the Clan Command Star, and the Clan Fire Star. These will be a Trinary of Jade Falcon (gotta have a force of the bad guys!).
I got the Comstar Command and Battle Level IIs to make a Level III, for use with the Tukayyid maps.
There's the Urbie pack, a Salvage pack, and a Legendary Salvage pack in my pledge, so I'll have to wait and see what that makes. Either they'll be random paint jobs or I can try to grab a loose Griffin from the Beginners box and make a Salvage Lance for my Mercs.
Also, I've been enjoying the Dark Age/IlClan transition novellas and novels, so I'm looking to get myself a 3145 lance made up of disgruntled RAF mechwarriors who went rogue after the Wall went up. I'm thinking a Gauntlet (B configurtation), a Kheper, a Carronade, and a Lament. I like mixing and playing with Mediums and Heavies. Lights don't have enough punch for me, but games with too many Assault mechs get boring.
So I recently got myself an Audible account and realized that this probably the only way I will ever actually read the Battletech books (despite the glut of ebooks they gave us in the Kickstarter. I can't read off my iPad at work). What are some "must reads" from the fiction I should start with?
Unfortunately a lot (if not most of) the Battletech stuff on Audible are abridged versions.
Right now the only fully unabridged Battletech novels on Audible are Embers of War by Jason Schmetzer, which is about mercenaries in 3067, and Forever Faithful by Blaine Lee Pardoe, which covers what happens to the Smoke Jaguars after they're defeated in 3060.
infinite_array wrote: Unfortunately a lot (if not most of) the Battletech stuff on Audible are abridged versions.
Right now the only fully unabridged Battletech novels on Audible are Embers of War by Jason Schmetzer, which is about mercenaries in 3067, and Forever Faithful by Blaine Lee Pardoe, which covers what happens to the Smoke Jaguars after they're defeated in 3060.
Are those two beginner-friendly or do they rely on knowing what came before?
Unfortunately they're not super beginner friendly (at least I know Forever Faithful isn't because it depends on you knowing both Clan Invasion era stuff and Dark Age stuff).
If you're looking for something to listen to, I can recommend Tex Talks BattleTech on youtube. His recent videos (The Amaris Civil War/Fall of Star League and Exodus to Elements: A Primer on the Clans) are great listens and don't need to be watched since the visuals are just mostly just battletech art. I think they would set you up pretty nicely to be able to check out other BattleTech stuff.
The Clan Invasion Kickstarter shipments have been delayed again. Catalyst has a nice write up:
Hey Backers,
Video update is about nothing to report! As what is written down below speaks for itself! Enjoy the update guys and Ill see you next week!
-Talon
In our ongoing efforts to keep all our awesome backers informed, here is the latest update on what we are hearing out of China.
The limiting item(s) for Wave 1 remain the Clan Invasion box set and all of the ForcePacks. You know, all those items with plastic figures that China promised would NOT have delivery issues like the last time when we did a major box set (11 months late on A Game of Armored Combat “new plastics” revision).
Why did we go back to this company? Because their plastics are really good! Until we decide if we want to go full HIPS (High Impact Polystyrene) then Liya will remain a go-to manufacturer for us.
But, they are freaking late. Terribly late. Beyond Covid-issues late.
Yes, it’s upsetting.
No, there isn’t a lot we can do but stay on their case about it, and make sure in their rush to catch up they don’t allow any new errors to creep into our designs. On that subject they’ve been really good. We have a dedicated rep who’s job it is to give us the ongoing bad news but to also take our concerns back to the factory and make certain in the end we get what we want. Even if it isn’t when we wanted it.
After blowing the June 20th deadline, China did a serious self-assessment and came back with a new date. Well, to be fair, first they said “It’s going to be July.” That was as close to a deadline as they’d commit. July. We spent a few conversations after that demanding a real deadline. That took a few weeks to get, but we got one. Ready for this?
July 31st.
Yep. As late in July as they could manage without totally breaking their most recent change of timing. Even better, though, they would only commit to the “original order” from 2019, and not the expanded order we asked for…mmm…sometime around March? Because of the success of the late pledge campaign that kept running in the background while we worked on getting the product out, we’ve added nearly 4000 new backers, and so—get this—we have to print 82,000 Salvage Boxes! Which is great for BattleTech. Which sucks for trying to get China to deliver everything we need on a decent timeline.
However, our rep went to bat for us and got the factory on board to get the expanded order to us within two weeks of the initial delivery. So at the moment, our delivery schedule looks like this:
80% of what we need on July 31st.
20% of what we need on August 15th.
That isn’t too bad, considering how the world shut down. After all, it takes two weeks longer in shipping time to get all the product we need to our EU Hub. So what we are hoping is that on July 31st, we can begin staggered shipping to our five logistics Hubs around the world in order to have the product arrive more-or-less at the same time and prep and begin fulfilling to you, our backers, about the same time.
After talking with Quartermaster Logistics, the fulfillment company that is helping us keep all this on track and will be responsible for the final delivery to you, we are looking at the following revised schedule:
August 1st: start shipping to the logistics Hubs
August 16th: final shipment to the logistics Hubs.
September 1-15th: all product arriving in all logistics Hubs.
September 15th-30th: all product collated and beginning to ship to backers.
September 21st - October 31st: Backers receiving Wave 1 worldwide!
As Hubs will be operating on their own schedules to make this happen, there is about a 2-week window where some Hubs may get an early start, and that leads to a 5-week window thanks to actual shipping and delivery times where product will be arriving to our Wave 1 backers worldwide.
Hopefully all that made sense.
So what does that mean for Wave 2? We are working to answer that question. While this has been going on, our team has not been idle. There are fifteen ForcePacks in Wave Two. Six of them are already with the manufacturer and initial prototype printing is already under way there, in preparation for the creation of the master molds. And we’ve another large batch of STL files heading to them shortly; there is actually only two designs left of the entire nearly 100 that have not had an initial sketch approved. While all of that is encouraging for moving into the start of Wave 2 production shortly after Wave 1 is done, we have not been given any new/revised schedule that we can bank on for sharing specifics at this time.
When we know more, you will know more.
Thank you for your patience and your amazing support.
-The Catalyst Team
We're now looking at October for our new plastic mechs. Wave 2.... well, no news is good news, right? I won't hold my breath that we'll see it by the end of the year. As an aside, it really, really irks me how much game companies outsource model production to China, as they have proven again and again to be unreliable, poor craftsmanship, or not meeting expectations, and companies still go back to them.
I'm not bothered all that much. Kickstarter delays aren't unusual, they're the norm. I don't think I've ever had a KS arrive on time, outside of Christopher West's amazing battle maps.
guinness707 wrote: So impatient waiting for the KS to deliver I bought a 3d printer and started making mechs from MWO.
Anyone else doing crazy things while they wait?
Yep Though I have made mine larger at 10mm scale to work with some terrain/buildings I have
What kind of printer and methodology did you take? The Awesome in my pic is the "Heffay" method, Marauder is someone else's pose from the internets. I like doing the mechs myself but it gives me non-manifold psychosis
guinness707 wrote: So impatient waiting for the KS to deliver I bought a 3d printer and started making mechs from MWO.
Anyone else doing crazy things while they wait?
Yep Though I have made mine larger at 10mm scale to work with some terrain/buildings I have
What kind of printer and methodology did you take? The Awesome in my pic is the "Heffay" method, Marauder is someone else's pose from the internets. I like doing the mechs myself but it gives me non-manifold psychosis
Printer is Photon, the mechs I have just downloaded wherever I could find 'em already as stl so I did not really have to mess with getting them ready to print. I did chop them up in Meshmixer and repose some, changed proportions on some that I did not like. Also added circular depressions to fit magnets at the "waist" so that torso twist can be done (I print the legs and torso as separate pieces in most all cases)
Vertrucio wrote: Nostalgia only goes so far, and people with nostalgia for btech are running out of time, money, and sometimes even life.
If you want battletech to make a come back, time to update every mech to use the new designes put forth by the PC games. Because a bunch of 80s reject robots, no matter how they might have looked to your teenage self, doesn't cut it these days.
aphyon wrote: It did take them 3 tries to get the blood asp right though.
I still haven't built my V2 Blood Asp. That model is a fething nightmare to put together. I've done it twice, and it just wouldn't stay, even with the power of green stuff to help me.
Must get the proper newer one that actually matches the artwork.
Yeah the first one had itty bitty little legs compared to the body, the second had the spindly little arms/legs and then they got it right on the 3rd try. i finally bought one when the 3rd version got released.
I received my order of Fighting Piranha Graphics today. They look good - hopefully they'll look as good on my demo lances for Alpha Strike I got from Death From Above wargaming.
Kinda funny - I recieved my kickstarter pledge but I've been spending my hobby time working on IWM minis.
An omnimech Centurion and a Crimson Hawk
A Mad Cat Mk IV (Savage Wolf) and a Templar III.
8th Crucis Lancers, to go up against the Death Commandos. Probably somewhere on Tikonov.
Supporting lances for bigger demo games of Alpha Strike would probably come from the Federated Suns Lancers and either Warrior House Dai Da Chi or McCarron's Armored Cavalry.
If FASA had maintained control and the company had not been broken up between a half dozen different owners for each part of the IP(minis, video games, tabletop game etc..) it could have been as big as GW.
The great thing that aside from a few changes to damage tables the core rules have not changed in 30 years. pretty much any situation you run into there is a rule or multiple converging rules that apply. additionally they have an entire book of optional rules for groups to use that are sanctioned.
Our group for example still use the max tech level 3 rules for the vehicle damage chat to make them more viable since the design team specifically noted they made vehicles less viable in the "total war" rules to make mechs more the focus of the game(less so combined arms for players). they even encouraged using the old rules if you prefer that version better.
aphyon wrote: If FASA had maintained control and the company had not been broken up between a half dozen different owners for each part of the IP(minis, video games, tabletop game etc..) it could have been as big as GW.
Possibly. Shadowrun could make for a pretty decent Infinity-style game pretty easily.
On the other hand, Battletech could have been altered considerably to be pretty much unrecognizable if FASA had become GW-big. Just look at how much the Warhammers have changed over the same amount of time.
Alpha Strike is a pretty far departure from the Total War style of Battletech. I actually quite like it. Speeds up the game, makes many bad mechs good (looking at you Vindicator) and yet still feels like Battletech.
I'm not sure if I missed it at some point over the past 20'ish years but GATOR is an amazing thing.
To me it doesn't feel like battletech at all. it misses the most important parts about the game, i want the immersion of the pilot checks, facing arcs, and system damage.
Yes it is a more complex game but it is designed to be played on a lance on lance scale not an entire army game.
There are ways to speed up normal play and we use many of them-forced withdrawal rules, fire as you bear (instead of declared fire) etc...
guinness707 wrote: So impatient waiting for the KS to deliver I bought a 3d printer and started making mechs from MWO.
Anyone else doing crazy things while they wait?
Yep Though I have made mine larger at 10mm scale to work with some terrain/buildings I have
Those look fantastic!
Could you explain more about this for me? Where do you get the files?
I play with rebased mechwarrior clix units and it'd be great to be able to print Mechs in 10mm!
The majority of mine are MWO assets worked through Blender using the 'Heffay Method'. I use Chitubox to pre-prep then away I go on my Anycubic Photon. I DO have a huge library of .stl files of mechs that someone else put together using the same method (I'm speculating on that). You'd have to find his stuff online on your own though. They exist.
aphyon wrote: To me it doesn't feel like battletech at all. it misses the most important parts about the game, i want the immersion of the pilot checks, facing arcs, and system damage.
Yes it is a more complex game but it is designed to be played on a lance on lance scale not an entire army game.
There are ways to speed up normal play and we use many of them-forced withdrawal rules, fire as you bear (instead of declared fire) etc...
How long does it usually take your group to play Lance-vs-Lance?
Those look fantastic!
Could you explain more about this for me? Where do you get the files?
I play with rebased mechwarrior clix units and it'd be great to be able to print Mechs in 10mm!
I can't speak to those exact models but thingiverse has hundreds of MWO mechs that you can resize and print at any scale you want last I checked (unless they were mass flagged in the past year or so).
How long does it usually take your group to play Lance-vs-Lance?
Usually say 3 hours. it really depends on variables. some times the game is a forgone conclusion but we drag it out to see the final result. thus dragging out the game long past the time it was neccessary to play. or there are those times that you just score tones of crits that force withdrawls or pilot kills.
The thing about battletech is there comes a point were you don't need to keep going, but you can if you want. the forced withdrawl rules also fit into the universal axiom-sacrifice the meat-save the metal-mechs are expensive.
We had one game that lasted maybe an hour, one of the weirdest and worst games (on dice rolls) one of my long time friends ever had. he scored a grand total of 35 points of damage to me and i head capped 3 of his 4 mechs and engine critted the last.
On the reverse side we had a player that was a regular once upon a time that overthought his movement to the point it would take him 30 minutes to decide where to move each turn with only a single lance or star. that really drags the game out.
One of the most fun ways to run large multi-player games is run solaris. everybody gets 1 inner sphere mech of each weight class starting out with lights and moving up to assaults as they get destroyed/forced to withdraw with the last mech standing being the winner.
I'm finally playing my first game of battletech tonight. It took me way too long to convince my friends to play it. and all it took was wave 1 of clan invasion finally showing up.
We are still gonna start slow with the beginner box though. Don't want to overwhelm ourselves
How long does it usually take your group to play Lance-vs-Lance?
Usually say 3 hours. it really depends on variables. some times the game is a forgone conclusion but we drag it out to see the final result. thus dragging out the game long past the time it was necessary to play. or there are those times that you just score tones of crits that force withdrawls or pilot kills.
That confirms my memory of how long the game took, on average. I've had my share of games cut short by lucky headshots.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Thankfully if a game is taking too long you can write down where everything is thanks to the hex numbers and pick it up at any time.
I didn't even think about that. May be worth doing when I get home. We played 2 games of the beginner box rules and 3 rounds of the AGoAC box scenario 1. It really is insane how different the game plays once heat and multiple mechs are on the table.
one question/gripe though. Do the weapons come with one round in the chamber? The catapult according to the sheet we had only had to ammo bins with 8 LRMs each in them. but is equipped with 2 LRM15s so either he has 46 missiles or 16 missiles and 16 total doesn't seem right or what's the point of the second LRM15?
Ammo is always listed in the number of shots the gun can fire.
For example, a ton of LRM-15 ammo provides 8 shots (8x15 missiles). It can fire all 15 missiles 8 times over.
I'd also recommend coming up with a simple method for tracking your movement and heat. We tend to use different coloured dice. White for your own penalty (ie. my 'Mech ran, so I put a white '2' on my record sheet up near it's movement to indicate the -2 penalty), blue for their penalty (eg. My 'Mech ran 4 hexes, therefore I put a blue "1" on my sheet so you can easily see what penalty you have for shooting).
Then for heat it's just red D6's, never going higher than a 5 so it's easy to track. I have fired and got 16 heat? I put 3 5's and a 1 near the heat track. This makes things quicker for multi-'Mech games.
If we're playing very large games (ie. anything 8v8 or higher), then I actually have a summary sheet where we keep all the dice so we don't have multiple record sheets with dice on them strewn about the table.
How long does it usually take your group to play Lance-vs-Lance?
Usually say 3 hours. it really depends on variables. some times the game is a forgone conclusion but we drag it out to see the final result. thus dragging out the game long past the time it was neccessary to play. or there are those times that you just score tones of crits that force withdrawls or pilot kills.
The thing about battletech is there comes a point were you don't need to keep going, but you can if you want. the forced withdrawl rules also fit into the universal axiom-sacrifice the meat-save the metal-mechs are expensive.
We had one game that lasted maybe an hour, one of the weirdest and worst games (on dice rolls) one of my long time friends ever had. he scored a grand total of 35 points of damage to me and i head capped 3 of his 4 mechs and engine critted the last.
On the reverse side we had a player that was a regular once upon a time that overthought his movement to the point it would take him 30 minutes to decide where to move each turn with only a single lance or star. that really drags the game out.
One of the most fun ways to run large multi-player games is run solaris. everybody gets 1 inner sphere mech of each weight class starting out with lights and moving up to assaults as they get destroyed/forced to withdraw with the last mech standing being the winner.
3 hours Is a good time for lance vs lance. I switched to Mech Attack for Battletech universe combat to get the time well under 2 hours.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Ammo is always listed in the number of shots the gun can fire.
For example, a ton of LRM-15 ammo provides 8 shots (8x15 missiles). It can fire all 15 missiles 8 times over.
I'd also recommend coming up with a simple method for tracking your movement and heat. We tend to use different coloured dice. White for your own penalty (ie. my 'Mech ran, so I put a white '2' on my record sheet up near it's movement to indicate the -2 penalty), blue for their penalty (eg. My 'Mech ran 4 hexes, therefore I put a blue "1" on my sheet so you can easily see what penalty you have for shooting).
Then for heat it's just red D6's, never going higher than a 5 so it's easy to track. I have fired and got 16 heat? I put 3 5's and a 1 near the heat track. This makes things quicker for multi-'Mech games.
If we're playing very large games (ie. anything 8v8 or higher), then I actually have a summary sheet where we keep all the dice so we don't have multiple record sheets with dice on them strewn about the table.
We use small dice to represent our movement mods (distance traveled) so our opposite players can easily add the modifier to their to-hit rolls . we also use the optional ghost imaging rules for ECM that can add up to a hit modifier of (d)4 if they fail the pilot check to see through the jamming.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Ammo is always listed in the number of shots the gun can fire.
For example, a ton of LRM-15 ammo provides 8 shots (8x15 missiles). It can fire all 15 missiles 8 times over.
I'd also recommend coming up with a simple method for tracking your movement and heat. We tend to use different coloured dice. White for your own penalty (ie. my 'Mech ran, so I put a white '2' on my record sheet up near it's movement to indicate the -2 penalty), blue for their penalty (eg. My 'Mech ran 4 hexes, therefore I put a blue "1" on my sheet so you can easily see what penalty you have for shooting).
Then for heat it's just red D6's, never going higher than a 5 so it's easy to track. I have fired and got 16 heat? I put 3 5's and a 1 near the heat track. This makes things quicker for multi-'Mech games.
If we're playing very large games (ie. anything 8v8 or higher), then I actually have a summary sheet where we keep all the dice so we don't have multiple record sheets with dice on them strewn about the table.
I had heard of the dice thing to mark modifiers before and we did end doing that. it was super helpful. The ammo thing makes a lot of sense. I don't know why I didn't realize that.
Depends on which cat your using. i play kurita with mine(2nd swords of light) so it is either K2s or the C3/MRM variant.
If i want really good missile artillery i bring out the 2nd deiron regulars and their Obakemono's
That reminds me....what faction/units do you guys play?
Our group always encourages players to pick at least 1 clan and 1 inner sphere faction. we have the field manuals as well so we can do units with their lore rules quirks.
For me
Inner sphere
Kurita
.2nd swords of light
+2 initiative bonus, auto win initiative if they outnumber by 2:1 or higher. must always go to battle in parade colors to show off the pride of the combine
.2nd derion regulars (mountain fighters)
+1 initiative bonus if fighting in mountains, preference for jump capable units.
Lyran
.10th lyran guards (it's victors old unit...could not stop myself)
If they are defenders in the scenerio they gain 1 minefield for every point(unit) in the force.
Clans
Hells horse
.Iota galaxy (the 9th ring of hell) -61st battlemech cluster "fire & brimstone"
misfits, off board movement, never honor zellbrigan, paint their units with outlandish paint schemes (think legion of the damned)
aphyon wrote: If i want really good missile artillery i bring out the 2nd deiron regulars and their Obakemono's
Which is great. Because it's a missile support 'Mech, unlike the bog-standard Catapult, which is deceptively a support 'Mech, when it's really more of a brawler. That was the point I'm making.
aphyon wrote: That reminds me....what faction/units do you guys play?
So as I'm splitting up my KS forces and deciding who goes where- what is the average BV of a pick up game? I used to mostly work with tonnage balancing, but that's not going to cut it with Clan vs Inner Sphere action.
Clans
Hells horse
.Iota galaxy (the 9th ring of hell) -61st battlemech cluster "fire & brimstone"
misfits, off board movement, never honor zellbrigan, paint their units with outlandish paint schemes (think legion of the damned)
infinite_array wrote:I've seen 6k-8k talked about as the standard amount of BV for pickups.
BV is meaningless outside of setting up some standard control of a tournament setting.
The crit system pretty well destroys it. we assign all pilots as standard veterans (4/5 or 3/4 for clan) with the lance/star commanders being the one elite in the force (3/4 or 2/3 for clan). we also focus more on theme forces. bigger is not always better.
Had one guy who never played with our group for the first time. i said bring whatever you want so he "powergamed" it up with his lyrans with an assault lance chock full of gauss and other big guns.
i countered with my combine fast heavy PPC/C3 lance as is the preference of the way kurita likes to fight-
.grand dragon
.ninija to
.daikyu
.shugenja (C3 master/lance commander)
If he hit me it really would hurt....but with a +3 movement mod on almost all my units +C3 network against his mechs that were getting at most a +1 his "BV advantage" didn't help at all.
Additionally with the standard 1.3 /1 variation when clans fight IS it is one star VS 2 lances and it balances out just fine without BV even considered.
Clans
Hells horse
.Iota galaxy (the 9th ring of hell) -61st battlemech cluster "fire & brimstone"
misfits, off board movement, never honor zellbrigan, paint their units with outlandish paint schemes (think legion of the damned)
Do you bring vehicles along, or stick with mechs?
Combined arms every time. i mix it up, but i always bring a squad of protomechs (they count as an "infantry" point and in the rules for all HH forces without an infantry element i am at a -1 initiative penalty)
My favorite mix is 3 mech points, 1 protomech point and 1 point of (2)vehicles. i usually switch between my enyo stike tanks (best tracked clan tanks IMHO ), garuda helicopters, or my xerxes aerospace fighters.
Played my first learners game, my marauder vs an awesome. I used terrain very well, but he hit me with two PPC which both hit the head and nuked my pilot . Very intuitive system. I’ve seen it for decades, but never bothered learning for some reason. The LGS is starting a league in the next couple weeks (waiting on more stock). I have almost all 10 models I picked up painted and based now.
I have no idea of clans or spheres, so painted how I felt like it.
Mostly FedSuns (see the profile pic). Painted in generic Crucis, also working on some Hussars.
I do have some other OPFOR with painted Sword of Light, Lyran Jaegers and Comstar. Personal favorite to break out for that is WoB though. The Celestials with iC3 is a delight.
With the CI out I am also getting through a Jade Falcon trinary.
Automatically Appended Next Post: For game size 6 to 10k is the BV I tend to find games at, based on how long the opponent and I want the game to last.
Gitzbitah wrote: So as I'm splitting up my KS forces and deciding who goes where- what is the average BV of a pick up game?
I've never used BV for a pickup game. I've never even heard of people using BV for pickup games.
BTech really isn't like 40k. Most people don't care about "points".
As i said before
With alternating movement, simultaneous fire, and most importantly the crit mechanic BV doesn't have any real impact on the game outside of a framework for events.
You could spend a boatload of BV on a pilots skills and mech loadout and he is still instantly dead if i shoot him in the head with anything that does a minimum 12 points of damage (or 10 and get a crit hit on the cockpit), or a floating torso crit that takes out 3 engines or 2 gyros in a go (or a bin of ammo without C.A.S.E. with the ammo explosion rules).
I received a bunch of 3d printed buildings I got from ebay today. They all look great. It's a combination of hardened bunker-like buildings and more civilian looking stuff. A quick layer of grey primer and some blue on the windows and I'll have plenty of built up area to fight around. Maybe I could make some parking lots out of plywood.
When it comes to 6mm terrain for epic 40K and battletech i have a bunch of stuff from both the old JR miniatures line as well as some ruined factories from novus studios but my main source for terrain is these guys-
...so yeah, I finally "closed" my Btech pledge manager and ended up with a Star Colonel pledge. I now have to wait for the canon character buyback to add even more stuff to it ^^
...seriously though, looking at all the stuff I'm supposed to get, the amount of money I'm pouring over it, and then looking at GW page, and...
Albertorius wrote: ...so yeah, I finally "closed" my Btech pledge manager and ended up with a Star Colonel pledge. I now have to wait for the canon character buyback to add even more stuff to it ^^
...seriously though, looking at all the stuff I'm supposed to get, the amount of money I'm pouring over it, and then looking at GW page, and...
It is a stark contrast, that. xD
Well DUH, you take the most expensive of all game companies (GW) where it takes around $500 to get a decent start on an army that may be invalidated in the next update compared to a game company where 4 or 5 minis of say $60 makes an entire army and the rules have been consistent for over 30 years. where you are free to play any era you want and the rules work for all of them.
Then the added bonus is that battletech lore is just as deep as anything GW has written.
Albertorius wrote: ...so yeah, I finally "closed" my Btech pledge manager and ended up with a Star Colonel pledge. I now have to wait for the canon character buyback to add even more stuff to it ^^
...seriously though, looking at all the stuff I'm supposed to get, the amount of money I'm pouring over it, and then looking at GW page, and...
It is a stark contrast, that. xD
Well DUH, you take the most expensive of all game companies (GW) where it takes around $500 to get a decent start on an army that may be invalidated in the next update compared to a game company where 4 or 5 minis of say $60 makes an entire army and the rules have been consistent for over 30 years. where you are free to play any era you want and the rules work for all of them.
Then the added bonus is that battletech lore is just as deep as anything GW has written.
If not deeper ^^.
But I mean it's a stark contrast even when comparing it with their supposedly "low entrance cost" games like Necromunda, Warcry, Kill Team or the like, with the possible exception of Underworlds... and I am not fond of that one, mainly on the account that it is a card game with minis as counters
aphyon wrote:Then the added bonus is that battletech lore is just as deep as anything GW has written.
If not deeper ^^.
But I mean it's a stark contrast even when comparing it with their supposedly "low entrance cost" games like Necromunda, Warcry, Kill Team or the like, with the possible exception of Underworlds... and I am not fond of that one, mainly on the account that it is a card game with minis as counters
Well, to be fair, GW spent decades only back filling lore for their games. They have only recently begun advancing it, while Battletech has been advancing for its entire existence despite the numerous changes in it ownership.
Don't forget the field manuals. the TROs are nice and give a good history of the various mechs and other vehicles. but the manuals actually break down the lore (and in-game rules) behind house military units and key people.
Yeah, since when I actually was playing, we were kids and we didn't have much money, we basically only bought the rules and not much else.
I am thinking of picking up some old copies of TechReadouts now, just for the heck of it. I have a few Field Manuals and House Books though.
But I am going to be trying to teach some new players the game soon, so I was worried about how many mapsheets I had and what condition they were in. Happily, while some record sheets got water damaged at some point, all the mapsheets are in pretty good condition. I did a quick count and seems like I have something like 51, which was way more than I would ever have guessed I had.
Seems I bought some of the ones released by FanPro/WizKids, go figure. But now I don't feel as bad if I wait for retail on the newer map packs.
Plus, our little group is looking to try playing the old CCG, so I have been hunting for cards for that...
Nurglitch wrote: Pretty sure stuff like TR: 2750 is 'back filling' lore.
While true, consider TRO 3050, 3055, 3060, 3067, Jihad, Dark Age, etc. Up until Age of Sigmar prep, GW ONLY did backfilling.
Unless you count the hundreds of novels and RPG sourcebooks, of course.
All of which happened at or before The End Times or 13th Black Crusade. Then people got on the Horus Heresy kick (which I can't blame them), and it REALLY got in to the back filling of lore.
Nurglitch wrote: Pretty sure stuff like TR: 2750 is 'back filling' lore.
While true, consider TRO 3050, 3055, 3060, 3067, Jihad, Dark Age, etc. Up until Age of Sigmar prep, GW ONLY did backfilling.
Unless you count the hundreds of novels and RPG sourcebooks, of course.
All of which happened at or before The End Times or 13th Black Crusade. Then people got on the Horus Heresy kick (which I can't blame them), and it REALLY got in to the back filling of lore.
So... pick one, they either ONLY did backfilling or they only did contemporary stuff (End Times/Black Crusade) until HH. Both cannot be true at the same time ^^.
But I understand, what you mean is that Battletech's metaplot has been advancing since the 80s, and yeah, you're absolutely right.
it's the two main "schools of setting thought", if you will:
- The "fixed setting" school advocates for something to always be "at the tipping point" so to speak, where changes are incoming, but not officially moving forward. 40k and WFB were both here for the longest time, but it's also how it works on Fading Suns, Eberron and scores of other settings, even Star Wars up until the new sequels.
- The other school is the "metaplot" one, where the setting is more like a continuously evolving story that you get to either be a part of or to vicariously enjoy. Battletech is here, along with Shadowrun, Vampire and many others.
And then, of course, there's a lot in between ^^. Like how both GW's main setting seem to be right now.
Albertorius wrote: So... pick one, they either ONLY did backfilling or they only did contemporary stuff (End Times/Black Crusade) until HH. Both cannot be true at the same time ^^.
Cute.
From the perspective of the frozen time point of End Times/13th Black Crusade, even "contemporary" fiction would be back filling as they fill in lore that was happening that lead up to that frozen point. It's not as noticeable as the Horus Heresy, but close enough.
GW actually did try to progress the story a couple times, but they stalled because of player input. Archaon got owned by Grimgor. Abaddon roflstomped the Imperium. A bunch of scenarios which left big wigs or player base dissatisfied, and so the story line reverted far enough behind these events to basically retcon them in to non-events.
Anyone have any insight into when and how BT tech readouts are reprinted?
I don't try to keep up with the online-only supplements but I like to have all the printed tech readouts. I looked into my collection and I find I don't have "Project Phoenix", and folks are asking stupid money for it anywhere online.
I'm not in a huge hurry, but it does appear that it might have a few base mech designs in it that aren't found anywhere else. What are the chances it get's a reprint in the next couple years?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Regarding advancing fluff, I always appreciated how BT was always about moving the fluff ahead. Sure there is elaboration on the past, but never at the expense of moving the storyline ahead. Backfill is almost always in moderation, except where whole unexplored sections of the distant past are opened up. Looking back through my BT novels, TRO's, sourcebooks, etc, most of that essentially seems to be at-or-near the leading edge of of the timeline at the time it was published.
Even though as a youngster I was more interested in 40k, I realized pretty quick that each edition of 40k pretty much rehashed the history of the one before. I have 4+ editions of codicies for given factions that add little to the lore of what came before. I gather that has changed somewhat recently, but I'm 2 editions out and don't care anymore.
By comparison, the Battletech universe keeps me coming back even though Apha Strike is the only BT ruleset I can stomach.
I think printed TROs are a luxury at this point. Last printed TRO I bought was 3067. Everything else since then has been PDFs. As for exclusive designs, they all get printed in the Record Sheet releases anyway, so it's hard to miss out on things.
Eilif wrote: Even though as a youngster I was more interested in 40k, I realized pretty quick that each edition of 40k pretty much rehashed the history of the one before.
That's because, up until recent, 40K was a setting rather than a story. By its very nature it was repetitive as they were reintroducing the setting with each new edition.
I've always appreciated BTech's drive to keep moving forward, even when I didn't like the story they were telling.
It is legit, I have made a few purchases from them. Whomever got the Earthdawn setting and FASA name seems to have some deadstock from the FanPro era as well.
As far as the question more generally, CGL did do a seemingly successful POD for TRO: Golden Century. So that may open the doors for more new print TROs and reprints. But that is all still in the speculative phase for projects that will happen after Kickstarter delivery is complete. On the BTech forums staff have been pretty clear that getting Wave 2 done is consuming "150%"+ of their time so things like this (read anything not explicitly promised as a product or stretch goal in the Kickstarter) is not a very high priority.
Obviously some other things are getting out there (Rec guides, ilClan setup fiction) but it is somewhat limited.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also nothing wrong with liking Alpha Strike over CBT (even in this thread). Represent your chosen faction and its giant stompy robots in your ruleset of choice.
I'm sitting here looking at the large box of Clan Invasion stuff I received from the Kick Starter. I backed at the Star Colonel level, and now have about 100 mechs to paint. On the plus side, these are some of the best looking mech's I've ever seen for Battletech! On the negative side, I got three of the same blind box Hero mech and pilot. Something like 20 unique hero's and out of the 10 I received, three are the same. Bad luck!
Now to figure out which paint scheme to use for Clan Wolf...
Tamwulf wrote: I'm sitting here looking at the large box of Clan Invasion stuff I received from the Kick Starter. I backed at the Star Colonel level, and now have about 100 mechs to paint. On the plus side, these are some of the best looking mech's I've ever seen for Battletech! On the negative side, I got three of the same blind box Hero mech and pilot. Something like 20 unique hero's and out of the 10 I received, three are the same. Bad luck!
Now to figure out which paint scheme to use for Clan Wolf...
It is legit, I have made a few purchases from them. Whomever got the Earthdawn setting and FASA name seems to have some deadstock from the FanPro era as well.
As far as the question more generally, CGL did do a seemingly successful POD for TRO: Golden Century. So that may open the doors for more new print TROs and reprints. But that is all still in the speculative phase for projects that will happen after Kickstarter delivery is complete. On the BTech forums staff have been pretty clear that getting Wave 2 done is consuming "150%"+ of their time so things like this (read anything not explicitly promised as a product or stretch goal in the Kickstarter) is not a very high priority.
Obviously some other things are getting out there (Rec guides, ilClan setup fiction) but it is somewhat limited.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also nothing wrong with liking Alpha Strike over CBT (even in this thread). Represent your chosen faction and its giant stompy robots in your ruleset of choice.
Thanks for that.
I checked and it turns out it was actually "Prototypes" that I was missing. Still, I'm Going to do a bit of digging at that site and see of there are any source books there that I want.
Hey guys, I've read most of the kickstarter thread and this one and I'm pretty hyped for this game I must say. Background seems nice, I love big stompy robots and this game my friends might actually be willing to play over 40k at least some of the time.
However, outside of the kickstarter I don't think I can join anymore, how does one start collecting this in Europe? I asked a local games retailer and he said he couldn't get a hold of anything, then I looked at the site and it seems that A) it needs to be shipped from the USA which could be pricey and B) their version of start collecting/starter box was out of sale.
I apologize in advance if this has been answered before or there are actually easy ways to get a hold of models/rules in the EU but I just haven't found either.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, working on a test scheme for Ghost Bear, since the one I want to do, Alpha Galaxy I feel is a little beyond me for getting the blue, darker blue, black blend down.
Castozor wrote: Hey guys, I've read most of the kickstarter thread and this one and I'm pretty hyped for this game I must say. Background seems nice, I love big stompy robots and this game my friends might actually be willing to play over 40k at least some of the time.
However, outside of the kickstarter I don't think I can join anymore, how does one start collecting this in Europe? I asked a local games retailer and he said he couldn't get a hold of anything, then I looked at the site and it seems that A) it needs to be shipped from the USA which could be pricey and B) their version of start collecting/starter box was out of sale.
I apologize in advance if this has been answered before or there are actually easy ways to get a hold of models/rules in the EU but I just haven't found either.
You're in luck! From what I can tell you can still back the kickstarter, which is the cheapest mechs have ever been, or likely will be again.
Ah so I overlooked, thanks guys! Weird that they'd offer their start collecting over KS as an extra buy when it lists it as being out of stock on their site but whatever. Going to be a bit pricey looking at shipping but not overly expensive compared to GW stuff so I think I'll take the plunge. Thanks again! Edit, looking at Wayland too, seems more convenient and low investment but those KS goodies do look good. AAAAND nvm, seems even on wayland all the core stuff is: awaiting reprint. Guess it is a nice option after getting a starter set from the KS.
I really want to reopen my Pledge and add a bunch of stuff to it, but . How do I know what I've already got besides going through my box and (which was at the Star Colonel level so I got A LOT of stuff), and how do I figure out what else is coming? Is it just Wave 1 stuff we have received so far, and it's only Wave 2 we are waiting on? I'll probably try and dig into it today.
Got the Battle of Tukayyid campaign PDF, and it's awesome. I'm going to order the physical book because it's that good. Which has made me desire the neoprene maps for Tukayyid as well. The new Clan TC variants are very intriguing to me. I want to take them out for a spin!
Ok, must be more like the Bones Black stuff, then. That stuff is significantly hard enough you can't bend most thicker chunks at all without using heat, and can almost scrape the mould lines like you would normally on HIPS. Or maybe, the more I look at pics on the web, it's like a version of Restic, like my old Sedition Wars kickstarter models. Which is nice in a way, as they take spray primer better than all Bones stuff.
I'll have to think on it, then. I been thinking of getting the standard box from Amazon, until the mech packs come out. I *might* be able to get a couple gaming buddies to try Alpha Strike. Standard BT is way to crunchy for any of my normal gaming partner, even if I don't mind, but there's also a couple of other mech games I have been really wanting good models for that might actually see the light of day, and Christmas is always a good time to splurge on unnecessary projects to add to the pile, lol.
Tamwulf wrote: I really want to reopen my Pledge and add a bunch of stuff to it, but . How do I know what I've already got besides going through my box and (which was at the Star Colonel level so I got A LOT of stuff), and how do I figure out what else is coming? Is it just Wave 1 stuff we have received so far, and it's only Wave 2 we are waiting on? I'll probably try and dig into it today.
Thankfully this pledge manager very clearly labels what's Wave 1 and Wave 2.
Shouldn't be much trouble to work out what you have and don't have.
Tamwulf wrote: Got the Battle of Tukayyid campaign PDF, and it's awesome. I'm going to order the physical book because it's that good. Which has made me desire the neoprene maps for Tukayyid as well.
I'm happy with the paper mats. I love that they are doublesized by default, rather than two you have to lineup. And the big punchboard of fire/smoke hexes that comes with it is very nice.
The maps themselves are gloriously detailed. Probably the best maps they've ever done.
Tamwulf wrote: The new Clan TC variants are very intriguing to me. I want to take them out for a spin!
Albertorius wrote: Looks amazing, yeah. My main issue with that is that I need to store it somewhere afterwards xD
Well on the flip side, since i own heavy metal pro i can print out all my control sheets with the 3d terrain 1 hex=2" rules so i end up using my 6X4 or 2 4X4 mats without the need for hexes
the 3d terrain rules are actually simpler with things like firing arcs. ranges/distances are also easy since you just round up to the nearest inch. levels of terrain are based on how tall something is in inches. every inch up is another level (with water we just declare how many levels deep it is, most of the time level -1 so that mechs are half submerged to the waist unless were doing deep ocean scenarios)
I have been playing with 3d terrain rules for so many years using hexes feels clunky and not as fluid.
The only positive i see from hexes is that you can shrink the play area if you don't have loads of space.
But as has been said, hexes are digital. There's no confusion, ambiguity or, dare I say, arguments over whether something is in LOS, in range, how far it moves.
It's impossible to measure something incorrectly. It's impossible for two people to have a differing idea on what's LOS.
One other advantage, too, most 3D terrain is not set up to be as gradual as the hex-based terrain is. Getting up and down all that is more difficult, to say nothing about just placing the miniatures on them.
So I just found out that the old FASA mapsheets have hexes that are 1.25" (32mm) and the newer CGL mapsheets are 1.3" (33mm). So, whatever scale I print terrain and buildings for, it will be off for some of them.
Plus, it means I can't mix in the newer sheets with the older ones when we play.
AegisGrimm wrote: Ok, must be more like the Bones Black stuff, then. That stuff is significantly hard enough you can't bend most thicker chunks at all without using heat, and can almost scrape the mould lines like you would normally on HIPS.
I'll have to think on it, then. I been thinking of getting the standard box from Amazon, until the mech packs come out. I *might* be able to get a couple gaming buddies to try Alpha Strike. Standard BT is way to crunchy for any of my normal gaming partner, even if I don't mind, but there's also a couple of other mech games I have been really wanting good models for that might actually see the light of day, and Christmas is always a good time to splurge on unnecessary projects to add to the pile, lol.
It is pretty rigid, enough to be durable but not break (when you are dealing with <28mm, to much rigidity can be a negative unless the models are metal). The great thing about BT, this holds true for the Alpha Strike version, the game is about as deep as you need/want it to be. You want to have small lance on lance game or have a mega game with lances-submarines-warships-infantry-arial combat. You can also go as lore deep as you want with your group. You can go full on generic or do force composition off of your House/Clan and even nail it down to a time period.
Combat wise has the most realistic rules. Action in round is simultaneous, which means damage is marked but its effect doesn't trigger until the end of round. This eliminates 1st round advantage of I alpha strike most your force off the table scenario. Those guys aren't dead until the end of the round so they get to shot back on your turn.
Fixed wing arial combat is also the most realistic I have scene from any sci-fi game. Most of the air combat for fixed wing happens on a second map that looks like a radar with the entire standard game board being in the smallest circle in the middle. Terrain matters. Infantry in a cityscape are nightmares for anything but Clanner assault mechs.
If you want to see how Alpha Stike plays on the basic level here is a good vid:
Albertorius wrote: Looks amazing, yeah. My main issue with that is that I need to store it somewhere afterwards xD
I am in the same boat. Got to say CG really nailed the 3d effect for their mats.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
H wrote: So I just found out that the old FASA mapsheets have hexes that are 1.25" (32mm) and the newer CGL mapsheets are 1.3" (33mm). So, whatever scale I print terrain and buildings for, it will be off for some of them.
Plus, it means I can't mix in the newer sheets with the older ones when we play.
Just base them on a 1.3" hex. I do the same for Monsterpoc, I set the building an a square base. Worst case your building is slightly smaller than the hex but you can still see its boundary due to the hexes.
Fixed wing arial combat is also the most realistic I have scene from any sci-fi game. Most of the air combat for fixed wing happens on a second map that looks like a radar with the entire standard game board being in the smallest circle in the middle.
We actually use the aerospace fighters on ground mapsheet rules. with aerotech 2 you are allowed to fly at velocity 1 or 2 -each one counts as a full map sheet(3 is to fast for the fighter to operate in atmosphere and if you go below 1 you stall and crash) up to elevation 9, you can use extra thrust + pilot checks to pull of a list of maneuvers or take a free 45' hex turn every 12" without a penalty.
So you have to plan your flight path with a mind to rather you want to do a strike or strafe attack (gunner +2 or +4 with added standard range penalties-strafe attacks can hit multiple targets in a line but can only be done by energy weapons like lasers)-aerospace always move last against ground targets having the mandatory speed advantage
It really gets AA units a role to play since the to hit mod is either a +5 or +7 AA gets an automatic -2 to hit for air tracking radar and then the weapon abilities are added in like LBX cluster shot(-1) and pulse weapons (-2) with range penalties applied as normal.
Charistoph wrote: One other advantage, too, most 3D terrain is not set up to be as gradual as the hex-based terrain is. Getting up and down all that is more difficult, to say nothing about just placing the miniatures on them.
The old Heroscape terrain seems very useful for this?
Charistoph wrote: One other advantage, too, most 3D terrain is not set up to be as gradual as the hex-based terrain is. Getting up and down all that is more difficult, to say nothing about just placing the miniatures on them.
The old Heroscape terrain seems very useful for this?
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
That's more hex terrain than 3D terrain. But for Battletech, they'd easily suffice.
So, I am about 90% certain I am going to pull the trigger on Battletech as a Christmas to myself after about 25 years of dabbling in various parts of the property (but never the true game, oddly enough). Almost all of the miniatures games I own and paint models for end up requiring me to paint enough minis for both sides of a game, so any opponent has good-looking loaners from my collection.
What is the best way to aim my collecting/painting after getting the full 8-mech boxed set, considering that the mech packs won't be here for several months, at least?
Here are the options I was thinking of, and keep in mind I am very much a neophyte other than spending too much time on Sarna over the years, so at least I have a working knowledge of the background storyline:
1: Paint the mechs as two classically opposed Inner Sphere houses and/or merc companies with the intent to primarily play them against each other in the pre-Clan, Succession Wars Era. Expand each with additional Inner Sphere-only mechs. Eventually maybe paint up some Clan-only mechs as a third force, and then everything moves into the Invasion years.
2: Similar to the above, but purposefully paint the two starter set forces as two similar-enough paint schemes, than if I expand into the Clans, I can simply unite them to portray a single House's force against the Clans.
3: Just say eff it and set everything post-Clan enough that two opposing forces can just use any mechs I feel like. Less thematically interesting, but the most freedom.
If you guys have some Heroscape terrain but not enough to fill a huge table, you can save alot of plastic hexes by using the boards from Magic the Gathering "Arena of the Planeswalkers".
The game is dead, but the sets are still available for not too much money. It's a clone of Heroscape with added magic rules but only included a few of the heroscape hex pieces instead opting for printed cardboard maps. Your heroscape hexes go alot further when the ground level is already covered and you only need them for elevation
AegisGrimm wrote: What is the best way to aim my collecting/painting after getting the full 8-mech boxed set, considering that the mech packs won't be here for several months, at least?
Firstly, get the Beginner's Box as well. It nets you an extra two 'Mechs, and some more maps. More maps = more variety, which is always a good thing. As someone who's been playing with the same maps for 20 years, the recent influx of new maps is an absolute Godsend. The more the better!
Plus with 10 'Mechs it will give you a bit more variety, even if one of those two 'Mechs is a duplicate of the Wolverine that's in the 8 'Mech box. I have no idea why they went with a duplicate 'Mech.
AegisGrimm wrote: 1: Paint the mechs as two classically opposed Inner Sphere houses and/or merc companies with the intent to primarily play them against each other in the pre-Clan, Succession Wars Era. Expand each with additional Inner Sphere-only mechs. Eventually maybe paint up some Clan-only mechs as a third force, and then everything moves into the Invasion years.
If you get both the Lance Packs that exist now (or will in a few months) + the 10 from the Beginner/Starter boxes, that's a fairly good spread of 'Mechs to use in heaps of scenarios. No Clans, obviously, but people have been playing without Clans for years.
As for painting them, splitting the 'Mechs in two groups is a good start. There are plenty of guides out there as to what 'Mechs fit with what Great House, but the truth is that they've been fighting one another with the same 'Mechs for so long that any house can have just about any 'Mech, even if some are more 'traditional' for one House over another.
AegisGrimm wrote: 2: Similar to the above, but purposefully paint the two starter set forces as two similar-enough paint schemes, than if I expand into the Clans, I can simply unite them to portray a single House's force against the Clans.
Depends how picky you want to be about that sort of thing. You shouldn't let the unit's paint stop you from mixing and matching forces. The consideration you should make is how to tell everything apart easily enough from a glance.
AegisGrimm wrote: 3: Just say eff it and set everything post-Clan enough that two opposing forces can just use any mechs I feel like. Less thematically interesting, but the most freedom.
This is what I'd do, but I'm looking at this from a different perspective (I have over 400 'Mechs, so splitting them up by Great House/Clan is really easy).
I wasn't really going to worry about delving deep enough to group traditional mechs with houses, but instead split the box in what seems like an equitable mix. I might actually paint one side as a House force, and the other as a Mercenary force, because then they also will blend easily if I end up with Clan stuff. And this is mostly just a plan if I ever end up playing large forces in Alpha Strike, or Mech Attack (a non-Catalyst game, which is kind of a middle ground between Classic and Alpha Strike in models-per-force and damage/heat tracking.)
Though I have to admit that before I have even bought the main starter box, I have already fallen prey to the subtle lures of this cute little buddy from a 3D printer. I figured why not, if I am painting Inner Sphere stuff, let's start with one of the nastiest, most iconic mechs, lol.
That is a sweet looking Atlas. Good scale with the Awesome too. I love the upside down hex base. I've done that for a number of my Omnis where the feet are so broad that don't fit the right way up.
Also, never take the 3050 upgraded Atlas. It's junk. Stick with the OG. AS7-D. The AS7-K is not your friend.
Yeah, when I found that Atlas from an Etsy seller (that's the seller's pic above) for 10 bucks+ shipping, I couldn't resist. I also bought a bunch of 1.25 inch MDF bases to base everything on, even the new plastics, because I like flat bases better than beveled, because then the feet sticking off aren't quite as pronounced, I guess. The only bit of a bummer is that the new larger plastics sure don't look like they'll scale well with some of the old ancient metal mechs I have rattling around in storage.
For some reason, even though I have never played the game even once, over the ages I kept either buying secondhand or being gifted random mechs alongside all my 40k stuff when I was a kid, and horribly painting them. Like, oooooold stuff. I actually have several unassembled Clan mechs in a box that were the old blue resin/metal combos when Ral Partha sold them!
Also, never take the 3050 upgraded Atlas. It's junk. Stick with the OG. AS7-D. The AS7-K is not your friend.
Sometimes the feet are too large for the metal hex bases so you have to turn them over. the plastic ones are a bit larger since they cover the same footprint without the bevel.
As for the atlas my favorite is my Lyran variant S2 with the heavy gauss and ECM. it is part of my good heat management desert lance.
H.B.M.C. wrote:Some BTech minis can be old. I know I own some ancient vehicle sculpts that are almost as old as I am.
I just hope I have enough room in my (now) 3 cases dedicated to BTech for the incoming plastics.
I also have a bunch of the unseens including the early clan IICs that got resculpted.
It is cheep to start but you end up with a huge collection. i have a foot locker sized tote full of enough minis to field most of a cluster and a comparable IS batallion between all the vehicles, battle armor, mechs and so forth. i even have the clicky version of the leopard dropship (it is more accurate with the mech scale.)
AndrewGPaul
When we get new players into the game we always encourage the lore. pick a faction you like the look of(units), combat style of, history etc... the field manuals are also a nice deeper dive into the game allowing special rules for specific units.
We play every era from 3025 (for more explosions) through 3185 but mostly around the fedcom civil war because there is so much variety available to the player during that period,
Remember the basic rule that clan mechs are worth 1.3 times an IS mech so a "fair fight" if you pit clanners against IS in a normal classic battletech game is 2 IS lances of standard 4/5 pilots against a single star of clan 3/4 pilots. we usually designate the force commanders to be aces with one better stats than their normal faction would have.
Outside of a planned event BV is pretty worthless for pick up games and is easily negated because of the crit system and pilot checks.
Theme is usually what we look for..
For example one of my 2nd swords kurita lance follows the normal combat doctrine of kurita with C3 computers , fast heavies and PPCs
By comparison my lyran desert assault lance runs a gauss heavy low heat...and assault mechs because steiner
.atlas S2
.fafnir
.viking 2G
.battlemaster 4S (steiner scout mech)
To stay in theme since i play hells horse on the clan side i always include a point of vehicles (2 for 1 mech because clanners think less of vehicles even for the horse)
and a point of protomechs because they count as infantry. So i don't take the initiative penalties required in the field manual rules for not having infantry in my force.
This is a good thread to see.
English BT player here, how easy do people find it is to start a group? Pre-lockdown I had 2 older gents and that was it.
Anyway, besides that I cant wait for my KS stuff to arrive. A full trinary of Clanners for my Jae Falcons and a lot of IS mechs for my various units (Magistracy of Canopus Fusliliers, Donogal Guards and 2nd Genyosha) as well as 6 Urbanmechs Im hoping to really get things started and ramp things up to the civil war and eventually Jihad.
Singapore, of all places, seemed to have a good BTech community. Could never figure out why.
First place I ever saw BTech mini blisters in the flesh.
I've got one friend who bought into the Kickstarter (he got everything, and bought some things twice by accident!), another friend who has some old BTech stuff and is interested in playing, another friend who has nothing but wants to play and another who... I can't tell. He's played, but sometimes he doesn't want to. I can't tell if he's into it or not. I'm hoping that the newer plastic minis will sway him to join in (don't need him to buy in - we've already done that for him).
I have had multiple groups of players off and on over the past 30 years. including a stint where i ran a campaign blog for about 5 years with batreps for all of our games. the problem is that with the death of FASA and the IP split between so many companies there is no coherent focus like most game companies. what you find is pockets of dedicated players.
I am lucky to live here in the pacific northwest where it all started, so there is still a large community that plays here. over the years i have promoted it of course at the FLGS to a host of new players. getting them started with a lance is usually all it takes to get them hooked. It helps that it is a cheap buy in of course.
aphyon wrote: I have had multiple groups of players off and on over the past 30 years. including a stint where i ran a campaign blog for about 5 years with batreps for all of our games. the problem is that with the death of FASA and the IP split between so many companies there is no coherent focus like most game companies. what you find is pockets of dedicated players.
I am lucky to live here in the pacific northwest where it all started, so there is still a large community that plays here. over the years i have promoted it of course at the FLGS to a host of new players. getting them started with a lance is usually all it takes to get them hooked. It helps that it is a cheap buy in of course.
We got a pretty big group in El Paso Texas. Catalyst KS really helped them take the IP serious. I don't think they realized how many BT fans out there and many BT fans didn't even realize there was a miniature game for the IP.
I'm really tempted to snag a Clan Invasion box off Ebay, and when it shows up next week, try to convince my wife I have "no knowledge of where it came from". Especially as I just bought AGoAC just tonight, lol.
You never know, with gaming communities. Wife's job moved us to a ridiculously middle-of-nowhere part of NY (which oddly feels more like we moved to the deep south), and in our absolutely TINY town, the game store has better system diversity than the 50 game-table stores I am used to, that ended up 95% 40k.
There's a few guys playing BT Classic, a thriving Gaslands, and an Armada group plus the usual stuff. Its wild, and kinda great!
Considering the nature of the game, I am not surprised.
It's no Starfleet Battles.
Starfleet battles is a little to complicated even for battletech players.
The B5 wars conversion does a fine job of doing star trek (and battlestar galactica, star wars, wing commander, BFG etc...) in a manner very much like classic battletech without bogging it down to SFBs levels.
NewTruthNeomaxim wrote: You never know, with gaming communities. Wife's job moved us to a ridiculously middle-of-nowhere part of NY (which oddly feels more like we moved to the deep south), and in our absolutely TINY town, the game store has better system diversity than the 50 game-table stores I am used to, that ended up 95% 40k.
There's a few guys playing BT Classic, a thriving Gaslands, and an Armada group plus the usual stuff. Its wild, and kinda great!
God, I wish!! I'm brand new to Classic, but love both those other games. Around here it's the usual heavy 40k activity, with some Star Wars Legion scattered in. I'm a big fan of non-mainstream games lately and would probably have to push hard to get a game of something skirmish-level but non-GW played. Battletech might still be around with some grognards, though.
The Pledge Manager is closing again soon for the Catalyst Games Clan Invasion Kickstarter. I opened up my pledge manager and added some dice and the neoprene maps. I've been playing a lot of Mechwarrior 5 Mercenaries, and even got the itch to play Mechwarrior online. Can't wait until this whole pandemic thing is over and we can play on the table top!
I reopened mine to get another T-Shirt. They're pretty good. Got Green Chicken, Ghost Bear and Dracs now.
Also added a Star box as a present for a friend. He loves Kodiaks and Hellions, and there's a box that has both, so that can be a surprise for him.
And another Urbie, 'cause why not? Now I can do a full lance of UrbanMechs (although my pirate force has a Lance called the Egg Men - 2 Urbies, 1 Urbie IIC and an Imp leading them!).
The close date was also pushed from 15/12 to 22/12, so everyone has a bit more time.
Considering the nature of the game, I am not surprised.
It's no Starfleet Battles.
Starfleet battles is a little to complicated even for battletech players.
The B5 wars conversion does a fine job of doing star trek (and battlestar galactica, star wars, wing commander, BFG etc...) in a manner very much like classic battletech without bogging it down to SFBs levels.
I don't mean to say that it's complicated, in its appeal to, although there's certainly lots of moving parts, but that it's not really about the battles part as it is about cleverly optimizing something. In that I think it's part of the appeal of model trains and whatnot, that there's this toy with lots of moving parts and it's up to the player to keep everything chugging along. It's like how Warhammer is a game designed to place miniatures in cool vignettes rather than represent battles.
I canceled my pledge and have been considering jumping back in but not sure what advantage there is over retail here, given I do not want tshirts or patches or digital products.
EDIT: Wait, is it the Urbie Salvage Box? Is that not coming to retail?
Price, I'd imagine. Usually Kickstarters are priced at 3x the cost of production while retail is 5x the cost of production to account for distribution and retailer cuts.
As much as I cherish my beloved CJF, a tshirt (or patch or pin or challenge coin, etc) is not really what I’m after. I want game stuff. Maybe it’s worth pledging to get the one neoprene mat I am missing and some urbies?
There are definitely variables that affect whether you'd want to wait for retail that means that it really isn't cut and dried.
1) Timing. KS people should get things x number of weeks/months before retail. Obviously varies and there is the odd instance of outrage inducing events where it's been the wrong way round.
2) Supply. With KS, you pretty much know that you'll be getting the stuff that you want. Availability of BT stuff in the UK has been spotty for the past decade or two, so I'd rather have the reassurance that I can get hold of it.
3) Price. Yeah, who pays MSRP for stuff? Depends on whether the discount that you can get brings it into what you consider to be worth it. I can remember X-Wing stuff being a bit pricey in the early days (no idea what the situation is now), just because of the iffy availability. On the other hand, Robotech Tactics and Sedition Wars cost peanuts in retail due to oversupply and/KS backer dissatisfaction; from the sounds of things that definitely isn't the way things have been going with Battletech, so I'm not expecting to see things on sale for $10 a box. Heck, even stuff that should be unwanted rubbish (yes you, Urbie!) is in demand.
Solid points. I recently ordered the physical copy of the new Tukayyid book from CGL because who knows if it will ever be available at retail and, if so, how quickly it will go OOS with basically no hope of a reprint. So yeah I paid MSRP plus shipping for that one. But I don’t mind getting products cheaper than KS backers in exchange for getting them after KS backers, which is the case with all the non-swag items in this KS — other than salvage packs. For whatever reason, the Clan salvage packs are going for $15 at retail right now. But at that price, they will inevitably wind up on clearance eventually. So, for me, that leaves the Urbanmech salvage pack.
Best value per mech is the Bloodnamed level, at 150. I think it works out to $4 a mech, or something thereabouts. The bonuses provided, purely from a gameplay perspective, are the Tukkayid map pack, and printed record sheets, and the cardboard standees. I started on those, so I thought they were neat.
Very interesting! Retail for the Stars is indeed cheaper than the Kickstarter pledge. I'm really glad you pointed that out, it makes reopening my pledge manager less appealing.
Those ancillary items might push the price down to a good value for you, and it's always possible to resell most of the collector's swag.
Tukkayid's map pack is 24 from retailers on it's own, and makes for some really unique scenarios.
H.B.M.C. wrote: We don't know how Urbies will be sold in the future, so get as many as you can.
I bought 9 extra, on top of the 3 that are already included with my pledge(s). Urbie company is a go.
Best value per mech is the Bloodnamed level, at 150. I think it works out to $4 a mech, or something thereabouts. The bonuses provided, purely from a gameplay perspective, are the Tukkayid map pack, and printed record sheets, and the cardboard standees. I started on those, so I thought they were neat.
Unless I missed something, Bloodnamed is 30 mechs at $150, which works out to $5 a mech, vs Star Colonel which is $4.34 a mech. Doesn't include the pair of elementals in each pledge level, but either way Star Colonel is the best value for your dollar in terms of number of mechs you get.
I know they dropped prices a bit in the pledge manager (I think they pulled the Tukayyid maps?), looks like Bloodnamed went to $145 and Star Colonel to $260, again Star Colonel is the better value - $4.83/mech for Bloodnamed vs $3.77/mech for Star Colonel.
But wait, theres more. It doesn't look like Bloodnamed came with a canon character - Star Colonel did. You convert that into a $75 credit and your Star Colonel pledge drops to $185. Thats $2.68/mech for Star Colonel, vs $4.83/mech for Bloodnamed.
I'm a brand new player to Battletech. I'm mostly interested in the lore, but I want to play the game too.
I started out by buying the current "Beginner Box" and "A Game of Armored Combat" sets. I love the minis in there; already painted them up!
I chosen to go with the Draconis Combine (House Kurita) and I wanted to get some of the faction specific mechs (e.g. Hatamoto Chi, Hitotsume Kozo, No-Dachi).
I see a few versions of metal ones for sale from companies like Iron Wind or Ral Partha. Are those the same scale as the plastics from catalyst games? or will it be like comparing a 20mm truescale human to a 28mm heroic scale human?
kungfujon wrote: I see a few versions of metal ones for sale from companies like Iron Wind or Ral Partha. Are those the same scale as the plastics from catalyst games? or will it be like comparing a 20mm truescale human to a 28mm heroic scale human?
Cheers!
The scaling on the old metals is all over the place. Some are scaled decently to each other, but most are just scaled to whatever seemed right to the sculptor at the time. For example, this not particularly good picture I took a while back:
On the right side, the one in the front is a 30 ton Kit Fox. The one in the back is a 95 ton Turkina. They are nearly the same size models. The one badly painted green in between is a 75 ton Night Gyr and is a good bit bigger than either of those. So, some are scaled decently to each other, but some are definitely not.
If you are aimed at a sort of "scale purity" the metals are not particularly good. But if you don't mind some oddness, they are decent to good. I'd guess maybe some of the newer ones are better in this regard as well, these are what I have that I found after probably 15 years in storage.
(P.S. I live in Louisiana too, more near Lafayette though.)
H wrote: The scaling on the old metals is all over the place.
Ah, good to know. Maybe I'll grab a few just to have them and hope that Catalyst resculpts them in the new plastics sometime in the future. I love the uniqueness of the "samurai-look" to some of the mechs. Especially in contrast to the more traditional looking ones (Wolverine and Battlemaster being two of my current faves).
Yeah, there's not much of an active scene for BT here in the NOLA area (even pre-Covid), but some die hard fans that have solid collections and are interested in a few garagehammer games. And the people I tend to play games with (40k, Legion, Malifaux, etc) are always more interested in fun narrative games than super-tight competitive games, so it gives me some leeway to grab mechs based on looks as opposed to battlefield prowess. :-)
As you are looking into the lore aside from the tech readouts i highly recommend you find some PDFs of the field manuals they give you a lot more specific unit lore as well as optional specific rules for tabletop play
There is a book for each of the great houses, one for crusader clans, one for warden clans and i think one for the periphery states.
As a side note i also started out with kurita for my first inner sphere faction choosing the second swords of light and 2nd deiron regulars. after the clan invasion/fedcom civil war era i added the 10th lyran guards because it was prince victor steiner-davions old unit.
This is an old pic of the kurita force...could not find my akuma when i took it and have since added a few mechs with the newer complete starter box
The lyrans
For my clan affiliation i went with hells horse because i like combined arms. something of an odditiy among the clans.
The clanners
As you can see with the mix of minis the size difference really isn't all that apparent.
Manchu wrote: kungfujon: are you aiming to start Classic BattleTech or Alpha Strike?
I'm aiming for Classic Battletech. Preferably on the hexmaps. There something very appealing about the old-school feel of it. I played Babylon 5 Wars back in the day, so I'm not scared of the more complex damage tracking sheets. And I'm intrigued with the precision of the hex-based measurements/terrain/LOS.
The mats have been harder to fine via online retailers but all four that a currently available can be purchased through the pledge manager. It’s worth noting they are double-sided.
Sword of Light/generic Kurita red has the benefit of not being too awful to paint. Here are some rush jobs I did a while ago, before contrast paints (would be even easier/better now). Just be sure to get some Fighting Piranha decals or similar.
Contrast + an aggressive drybrush does wonders on these new plastics. How quickly I can paint up new models and have them on the table is yet another reason I am loving BT recently.
How quick-playing Alpha Strike is, while still evoking CBT once you add in some of their optional rules, has been a godsend, and DFA's suggestion about halving the scale for movement makes it feel even more like CBT.
There's a place for both. It is Covid year, so my options to game at all have been my wife and her father. Both have become impressive gamers over the decade we've been together, but are still no where near ready to dive directly into the crunch of CBT.
Alpha Strike with only its base rules is a touch light, but still really fun, and handles combined arms better than most games I have ever played...
... but AS with its optional rules engaged, plus the 1:1 scale (essentially an option in the book that DFA slightly elaborated on)... that's magnificent AND surprisingly accessible.
That it works as a gateway to Classic is pure bonus.
I get that people like it, and that's fine, but when I look at this and I see that it's weapons are just reduced to a firepower value and I think, what's the point? It just doesn't (alpha) strike me as interesting.
I felt the same way at first, HBMC. And I would never give up on CBT in favor of Alpha Strike. CBT is the real deal and Alpha Strike comes nowhere close to replacing it. That said, Alpha Strike is not just more accessible but also a proper miniatures game, unlike CBT, that scratches many of the minis gaming itches that CBT doesn’t. The best part is, if you already play CBT and you are already a minis gamer, getting into Alpha Strike is as easy as falling off a log.
I always saw Alpha Strike as playing Apocalpyse level of models of BT, but without the same time consuming concept that Apocalypse brings to mind. Definitely a bit more Epic-style of play, if you get my meaning.
A little too abstracted in my opinion, I'd rather having something that was about halfway in between, but that's just me.
I initially played Alpha Strike when it first came out and found it pretty boring. The first edition just wasn’t all that great and I think it has prevented some people from taking the concept seriously. But it’s been a while since then and in the meantime CGL released Commander Edition.
Here’s an Alpha Strike batrep from DFA. These guys have used a lot of the Commander’s Edition optional rules to add some “crunch” to Alpha Strike that, IMO, makes it a perfect miniatures gaming version of CBT.
I painted my first set as the 1st Sword of Light to get the "classic" Kurita look.
I have discovered a technique i really like that brings out the details for painting sword of light. i base coat in flat back and then lightly dust the model in a dark red. it can be done either by spray can or air brush.
I loved the Blood Asp in the video games (MechCommander 2) but nope'd out on the models.
It is pretty brutal in the mechwarrior living legends game...speaking of, since we have some new players i should plug this fan made game again
The black pants legion has been running some streaming events (TEX is the the man!) of the game on their channel if you wants some gameplay footage. it is a free game made by the fans so it is not that flaming pile of garbage call of duty version (MWO). and true to real classic battletech it is combined arms-tanks, planes, VTOLS, battle armor, hovercraft, mechs, artillery etc..
They even got the one and only Duncan Fisher to reprise the solaris arena maps announcer
I'm aiming for Classic Battletech. Preferably on the hexmaps. There something very appealing about the old-school feel of it. I played Babylon 5 Wars back in the day, so I'm not scared of the more complex damage tracking sheets. And I'm intrigued with the precision of the hex-based measurements/terrain/LOS
I still play B5 wars including the conversions to trek, star wars etc....SW armada and trek attack wing ships fill the role quite well, they also have a company that does the expanded battlestar galactica mini line.
That aside yeah alpha strike takes away much of what makes battletech so much fun to play-crits, pilot interactions, detailed heat and movement control etc...
aphyon wrote: I have discovered a technique i really like that brings out the details for painting sword of light. i base coat in flat back and then lightly dust the model in a dark red. it can be done either by spray can or air brush.
Nice! I primed mine with Citadel Grey Seer and based with Contrast Blood Angels Red, then hand painted increasing highlights with traditional paints. Then added the black details, metallics for the weapons, and blue-glass effect for cockpits.
I still play B5 wars including the conversions to trek, star wars etc....SW armada and trek attack wing ships fill the role quite well, they also have a company that does the expanded battlestar galactica mini line.
That aside yeah alpha strike takes away much of what makes battletech so much fun to play-crits, pilot interactions, detailed heat and movement control etc...
I do miss B5Wars, but I lost all my stuff in Hurricane Katrina, oh so many years ago. I still do have a CD-ROM of all the ship sheets though! (it was at my office that wasn't destroyed. lol)
I've got some casual skirmish-type games to scratch the itch of a low-crunch, fast-play game. I looked into CBT for the crunchiness.
Charistoph wrote: I always saw Alpha Strike as playing Apocalpyse level of models of BT, but without the same time consuming concept that Apocalypse brings to mind. Definitely a bit more Epic-style of play, if you get my meaning.
A little too abstracted in my opinion, I'd rather having something that was about halfway in between, but that's just me.
I think you nailed it. I LOVE Epic 40k, so playing a 500pt game of Alpha Strike with combined-arms, in two hours, feels reeeeeeally good.
I do miss B5Wars, but I lost all my stuff in Hurricane Katrina, oh so many years ago. I still do have a CD-ROM of all the ship sheets though! (it was at my office that wasn't destroyed. lol)
Well this is the point where you are going to love me or hate me..or both at the same time-
Behold all the B5 wars stuff for free on PDF including all the alt universe conversions.
Phew! Just cleaned up all the mechs from AGoAC, and I forgot how much Sedition Wars made me absolutely hate Restic for mould line cleaning!!
But at least that's done, and I am on to priming and painting, while I wait for my 3D printed Atlas to arrive because of some atrocious mail service (so far it's been over 10 days to cross just three states, and it's still not here, grr....).
Still not sure if the two forces I'm splitting up the set into will be tied to a larger House, or just represent mercs. But because one force will be blue with a red left arm/right leg I guess they could pass as Lyrans, while the grey and green could be Capellans. Still learning my way through the background fluff.
I've got better at doing restic since then, but it's still a case of "Ehhh... I guess that'll do...", rather than a cleanup that I'm actually happy with.
(this is not a harsh critique, but we have main battle tanks that roll around at 70 tons and are...1/200th the size of an Imperator if not smaller)
I plan on getting into the game with the Clan Invasion kickstarter and they're my chosen Inner Sphere faction.
) before I took the leg off. even though it turned out that way, it was still good to break out something a bit different,.
) I've jumped back into 
. How do I know what I've already got besides going through my box and (which was at the Star Colonel level so I got A LOT of stuff), and how do I figure out what else is coming? Is it just Wave 1 stuff we have received so far, and it's only Wave 2 we are waiting on? I'll probably try and dig into it today.
Im hoping to really get things started and ramp things up to the civil war and eventually Jihad.
including the conversions to trek, star wars etc....