Lorcan Nagle wrote:BattleTech
https://www.youtube.com/live/n8fCnbSKirs?si=r8CDUQlWYac1FbB1&t=3730
Panel: Rem Alternis; Randall Bills; Ray Arrastia, BattleTech Line Developer (by video); Aaron Cahall, BattleTech Assistant Line Developer, Ray’s Therapist, External Hard Drive and Wartime Consigliere (by video)
-Recent book releases:
--Force Manual Kurita
---BattleTech and Alpha Strike force building companion
--Universe
---Randall told Ray he felt a little bad for him, because he’ll be working on BattleTech for many years to come and he didn’t thin Ray would make a better book than this
---If the plastic minis are the most important thing done for BattleTech in the last 25 years, this is the second
---Ray was incredibly stressed out when the proof arrived, everyone left him alone with it for a little while
---It’s already gone back to reprint despite a large initial print run
---The book was a massive collaborative effort for all involved
--Hot Spots Hinterlands
---Randall had much less to do with this one - Ray, Aaron and Randall collaborate on the macro-scale, he gives them his ideas which they “run into the ground wonderfully”
---Ray shouted out Josh Franklin as the developer/Alpha Strike overseer/revamper of the campaign rules
---An expansion of Josh’s rules in the Mercs box set
---Even if you’re not running a mercs campaign, there’s a lot of useful material that you could use in your own games/campaigns.
---Aaron described it as the payoff for Tamar Rising, the way to bring it to the table
---He also shouted out the original 90s Hot Spots book, a collection of plot hooks for your Saturday game
---There’s a mission where you’re hired to protect nukes but you can steal them and deal with the aftermath
---There’ll be an
AMA with Josh Franklin soon
-Upcoming releases
--BattleTech: Mercenaries box set
---Should be at retail in January
---The philosophy for the current box sets is that each one adds something else to your game, in this case campaign and battlefield support
---BattleTech is a combined arms universe, but mechs are the kings of the battlefield, the Battlefield support rules are meant to reinforce that.
---They’re not getting rid of the existing vehicle and infantry rules, this is just a way to bring support elements to the table easily. Randall doesn’t see himself going back to the old way fully
---Randall pointed out that you can mix and match. At Masters and Minions last year they had four SM1s on a table, three were battlefield support and one was Callandre Kell in a full record sheet version.
--ilKhan’s Eyes only
---Randall notes the campaign map in the back, Randall frequently apologies to Ray for dropping it on him and adding it to the book series at the last moment
---Randall shouted out the art team, saying that the space combat art is reaching the levels of what Doug Chaffee used to do, which is the highest compliment he can give
---The final sourcebook in the “clock face” series of campaign books and the first book of the ilClan cycle
---We get to see what’s happening in the middle of the Inner Sphere, and what’s happening on Terra
---We’re going to see things we’ve never seen happen in the Inner Sphere before
---Brings the Capellans, Wolves and the ilClan-loyal clans up to 3152
---Aaron shouted out Josh Perian, Stephen Toropov and Eric Salzman for developing and writing on the book. They took the top-level story ideas and turning them into a book. Paul Shardin did a lot of the early work, especially the logistics of unit moving around the map
---This was the most difficult of the books to make, and it makes a capstone for the arc.
---Aaron feels it’ll be well-received, and will turn the ilClan era into more of a setting that players will want to inhabit.
---The first two-thirds of the book is going to be similar to the first three books in the series, while the last section will recap the prior books and update the setting for each by a month or two
-Because of audio issues with Ray and Aaron’s video connections, Rem is going to have Ray and Aaron on Tuesday Newsday stream to talk through their points on the panel.
-While they had more products to show and talk about last year, the first half of the Kickstarter items are hitting retail between January and July.
-Randall was asked how he sees BattleTech going over the next five years. He talked about the world tour being so amazing, he hit 100,000 miles of travel during his flight to Pax. He has some side projects he wants to do, like the new 4X game, COMMAND, and writing his Nova Cat novel, but his big goal is to have BattleTech be mentioned in the same breath as Warhammer, D&D and Magic, so if a granny is going into a game shop to buy a present for her grandkid she’ll know the name when she’s talking to the staff. He mentioned a YouTube video from a couple of years back called “the coolest
SF universe you’ve never heard of”, and how they’re still in that niche.
-Rem asked Randall for his one sentence pitch, he called it “Big stompy robots blowing stuff up.” Rem has two: “Game of Thrones with robots” and “
40K but with hope”
-Mike Richie asked Randall what was BattleTech like, and Randall replied “I’m gonna talk for 20 minutes, is that OK?” Mike said yeah, so Randall proceed to infodump, and at the end Mike said “wow, this is much deeper than the box art suggests”
-Ray is very happy to see people finally getting their stuff, the videos and photos of unboxings
-New minis:
--McCarron’s Armoured Cavalry Assault Lance
---Barnes and Noble exclusive for six months.
---B&N have been very happy with BattleTech and having it in new venues is great for the game’s expansion
---Tian-Zong
---Jumping Starslayer
---Black Knight repose
---Awesome 9Q
--Black Remnant Command Lance
---Surprise!
---A lance covering the Penny Arcade guys’ let’s play series that’s been running for a couple of years
---It all began when the
PA guys open the Alpha Strike box on-stream and Jerry was almost complaining that the box was too good, there was too much stuff in the box for the price
---They decided to stream the game and their Destiny/Alpha Strike hybrid with no house rules and it worked fine
---They approached CGL with the idea of doing a forcepack and it was developed in secret, it’s on sale at Pax
---Dragon Fire
---Blood Asp I
---Flashman repose
---Cyclops 11H (rocket launcher variant)
--Randall talked about how so many people talked to him on his world tour about how much they loved using rocket launcher mechs
---General release in Q1
--Third Star League Strike team
---Pre-painted Lament
---Kintaro
---Hammerhead
---Jackalope
---Havoc
---J-27
--Battlefield Support: Emplacements
---A selection of bunkers and turrets
---These will be modular, so you can swap the turrets between the different bunkers and towers
---They’re working to make the turrets compatible with the LRM and SRM carrier missile pods
---The box will include BSP and Alpha Strike cards
---There will be BattleTech structure record sheets for them as a download too.
-Randall will be at the Roundtable in Gwelf in Toronto on Tuesday and Zulus on the 14th
-Randall talked about how he, Bryn and some friends who aren’t as BattleTech-literate have been playing MechWarrior 5: Clans. He and Bryn were excited when they got to Turtle Bay, while their friends were wondering what had them so giddy.
BattleTech Fiction
https://www.youtube.com/live/n8fCnbSKirs?si=YNdJRcqLCYWpA-JB&t=7778
Panel: Michael Ciaravella, Author, CGL Events Manager; John Helfers, CGL Executive Editor; Bryan Young, fiction author (by video); Phil Lee, fiction and sourcebook author, Shrapnel editor, “CGL Swiss army knife” (by video)
-Letter of the Law by Phil Lee
--Not exactly a sequel to Hunting Season, more another novel in the FWL
--About a member of the Stewart family who decides to retake their homeworld now the Wolves aren’t defending it, and a lot of people are unhappy
--Phil ended up being the FWL expert by stepping up to write about then for a number of projects, and he ended up becoming an expert
When Shattered Fortress was being written, they had the idea to write and publish some novellas to promote it. Phil’s idea was to do the investigation into Jessica Marik’s death, and it became Hunting Season much further down the line. Phil basically fell in love with writing the League during this process.
-Shrapnel 19 drops next week.
--A lot of new authors
---Spirit Cat, Sea Fox and Periphery stories
---A fun article where a bunch of ComStar Adepts argue about which era of their history was best
-Fox Patrol
--Fox Tales was mentioned, a compilation of the initial Shrapnel stories plus a new one
--Lone Wolf and Fox will be released in a single volume with a new story called Jade Foxes, showing the battle of Sudeten from the Patrol’s point of view
--A short novel about the Lone Wolves after they arrive at Almotacen, ties into Hot Spots: Hinterlands
-Bryan has plans for Jiyi’s Falcons, one of the most consistent questions Bryan gets is when do they meet up with Stephanie Chistu, and this is still up in the air. Michael holds the keys to Stephanie’s side of the equation and Bryan the Jiyi, so they’ve been discussing it but there’s a lot of story to tell before it happens
-John is calling the next year for fiction “the year of Terra”
-Trial of Birthright by Michael Ciaravella is done!
--Out by the end of December
--The first of the Star League novels
--Picks up moments after the end of Hour of the Wolf
--Alaric need to figure out what he’s going to do and how he’s going to change the universe
--It’s more of a challenge than he’s expecting
-Voidbreaker
--Out January 24th
--Also starts moments after the end of Hour of the Wolf
--The Sea Foxes are trying to find Tucker Harwell following his disappearance and the chase for him
--The events are all about the attempts to control the HPG network into the future
--As much as the book is stompy robots, it’s also a spy thriller
--Puts the technology and changing nature of the universe in the spotlight
--They’re going to be catching up with a lot of the surviving Republic and Dark Age characters over the next few novels
-Blood will Rise by Tom Leveen
--A follow-up to Blood will Tell by Jason Schmetzer
--Tom’s first full-length novel
--Out in April
--Deals with the Capellan attempts to breach the Fortress Wall, and Danais and Daoshen’s evolving relationship.
-The Long Road by Jason Hansa
--About Tara Campbell post-ilClan
--Out maybe for Gencon
--Jason pitched this to Ray last year and got it ready for publication in record time
-Other works brought up
--The founding of the Clans Trilogy, as a jumping on point for people who came in with MW5 Clans
--In The Shadow of the Dragon
---About Yori Kurita solidifying her grasp on the Draconis Combine
---Went through a lot of revision to encompass more detail around the Combine in the late Dark Age
---Starts with a murder mystery, ends with a mech battle
-Michael has three more BattleTech projects on the go
--A Treachery of Ravens, about the Snow Ravens is the only one mentioned
-They’re in the process of bringing back the BattleCorps anthologies back, new cover art, revised, proofed interiors
--The Corps is out now
--Some of the short novels will be brought back too
-Den of Wolves is progressing. John said three quarters done and he’s cracking the whip whenever he can
-Wars of Reaving Trilogy
--Craig and Jason are making good progress on their books
--Hoping to have them out next year
-Bryan has turned in a series of 4 novellas in the 30-40,000 word range covering the Ghost Bear civil war.
-Mike Stackpole and Bryan are hard at work on the graphic novels, the writing is almost done and it’ll be turned over to editorial soon.
BattleTech Aces
https://www.youtube.com/live/n8fCnbSKirs?si=AJH6JoWQiPh7WnFw&t=11151
Panel: Michael Ciaravella; Randall Bills; Josh Derrickson, Aces Developer; Tommy Grofton, Lynnvander studios
-CGL have had a relationship with Lynnvander for some time, they’ve worked on games together. When Covid happened Randall and Bryn said they had a lot of time on their hands, so what can they do? Randall decided to become a miniatures games expert. One of the many games he played was Star Trek Alliance, a Lynnvander production. Randall and Bryn had a spreadsheet tracking elements of the games they played and Alliance had one of the best
AI systems they’d seen. Randall and Bryn were thinking about how they could do something like this for Alpha Strike as they were working on the box set at the time. They pitched the idea to Tommy, and the initial idea was a deck of cards and a booklet. And then the project spiraled.
-Tommy talked about how they’d been pitching a lot of games unsuccessfully to Wizkids, and eventually they bit on Tommy’s offhand idea of making Attack Wing co-
op. The game was barely being supported and Alliance ended up being a major revitalisation for Attack Wing.
-They are working on a BattleTech Aces version, but Alpha Strike was easier to do and was a better place to start.
-Aces is built around 200-400 point games, a couple of lances on the table. But there’s potential to build it out.
-When they decided the product shouldn’t just be a deck of cards they fixed on adding a narrative focus as BattleTech is such a narrative game and universe. The campaign has a sort of choose your own adventure vibe
-Randall noted that Lynnvander did a lot of work to delve into the universe so there was very little feedback CGL had on the detail front.
-Randall taught Josh BattleTech two years ago, he’s since read like 40 of the novels, many of the sourcebooks and TROs, and he says he knows BattleTech as well as Star Wars, which he’s been into since he was 14
-CGL believe so strongly in Aces that they are committed to four box sets, each one linked to one of the ilClan-era sourcebooks
-The first box is called Scouring Sands, set in Tamar Rising, followed by one for Empire Alone, Dominions Divided, and IlKhan’s Eyes Only
-Cover by Marco Mazzoni. New cover style, does a full wraparound onto the sides of the lid. Each box is themed to a biome
--New terrain
--Randall talked about the cardboard terrain in the Alpha Strike box, he didn’t get to see the buildings until a production set after championing them during production. He knew they had to add them to the Aces boxes as well.
hills. They’re functionally the same as buildings in terms of how they’re put together, but they help to break up the terrain. Josh was inspired by the depictions of Hall’s terrain in Embers of War. The larger hills are strong enough to hold 4 metal mech minis. They’re stackable and designed to easily be put beside each other to make bigger ones
--2-sided river and canyon pieces, they have jigsaw connections on the ends. 6 pieces in the box with endcaps, it’ll run about 4 feet long in total, pieces allow for bends in the rivers
--A trussed bridge
--MSRP is $79.99
--New reference card to make it easy to do combined arms
--Campaign book, at its core it’s a variation on Chaos Campaign
---Book may be spiral bound, the prototype they showed is but it might not make it to production
---The campaign is set on Apolakkia, on the border between the Alyina Mercantile League and Jiyi’s Falcons
---Each scenario has a 2-page spread, has some fiction by Russel Zimmerman and preface on one side, mat and force on the other
---Lots of tokens that trigger cutscenes as you play, there’s waypoint that triggera blurbs, many with gameplay effects in the back
--Edge point tokens with triggerable edge ability cards. Because Aces is meant to be co-
op, players will have a small number of units so you can’t
--Cardboard tokens for infantry, armour and emplacements, plus Battlefield support cards even though there’s no other BattleTech content in the box
--Alpha Strike cards for a lot of units that have yet to have colour cards, such as Elementals and emplacements
--Aces decks, many changes since the open beta.
---There are now two card types, commanders and units
---The unit cards have three stances: balanced, aggressive or cautious.
---The commander cards will alter these behavioral stances, giving the units personalities
---There are now specialist roles, such as a Skirmisher (JMPS) that will more aggressively exploit the ability
---Wheeled and hover vehicles have a special deck, VTOLs will have a special deck too in a later product
--Randall talked about how a lot of people on his world tour told him their friends, family, partners and so on have gotten into BattleTech via Aces, because it’s co-
op, which is a lot more popular these days. He hopes this will spark more co-
op modes for minis games
--Minis
---Similar to Alpha Strike, there are two brand-new minis in the set
----Thunderbolt IIc
----2 Fulcrum hovertanks
---Locust IIc 4
---Baboon 6
---Thor H
---Marauder IIc 6
---Rifleman C 2. The Project Phoenix-style fins will be an optional piece
---Kraken 3
Aces Actual Play
https://www.youtube.com/live/n8fCnbSKirs?si=D7ZxvdKI4q3V7DPQ&t=15871
Players: Tommy Grofton, Josh Derrickson, Randall Bills
-Randall was up in Canada filming a MechWarrior Destiny game series with Lynnvander. The team is the Mech 7.
--Randall pilots a Banshee
--Tex an Awesome
--Tommy a Highlander
--Big Red a Wolverine
--Paul from Focht's News in a Spector
--New players Maryam and Sage piloting an Ostroc and Scorpion
-They played mission 00, which is going to be in each box set’s version is slightly different. It’s meant to have you playing a minor variation of the second training game in the Alpha Strike box set. But they’re using the Scouring Sands minis for the enemy and playing with the Mech 7
-After table setup they shuffled the waypoint tokens and placed them face down on the table.
-Objectives:
--cripple three enemies
--Destroy up to 4 supply caches
--Lose no more than 4 units
--Game ends after 7 turns or when one force is wiped out
--Both sides were under forced withdrawal, there’s an aces card to cover the
AI behaviour
--When a player unit is in 6” and
LOS of one of the waypoints, reveal the token, 4 of them are cache buildings with
CF 4, and have story elements that are revealed when the tokens are flipped
-Three named character units were given a random edge ability. In the regular games players get to pick their ability when creating their force.
-One player is designated commander. If the force commander on either side is destroyed, you have -2 to initiative for the rest of the game.
-There is an initiative track, allows you to note which turn you’re on and who won initiative.
-Aces defaults to front-loaded initiative
-You place the aces deck for a unit below the unit card, and just slide the unit card off to check turn order and instructions,
-The aces cards have conditions on them to determine whether they fight cautious, balanced or aggressive in a given turn. The commander card will help with target selection.
-The attack instructions are now on the back of the card, so after you move you flip the card over and put it back under the stat card after movement to indicate the user has moved and you can’t see the fire instructions yet. The attack instructions also have an order of actions, which isn’t always the same as the move order. After you fire you just slide the card to the bottom of the deck and you’re ready for next turn.
-Aces uses multiple attack rolls by default.
-There are three default edge abilities you can use
--Increase or decrease one weapon dice roll by one per turn
--Reroll a motive crit on a vehicle a character is controlling
--Reroll a critical hit against a unit a character is controlling
-The commander’s deck changes at the end of the turn based on the events in the current turn, you check conditions and might swap out the commander card based on the instructions.
-Some events will trigger on turn changes as well, for example in turn 2 the players got a -2 to their initiative roll. But still won the roll.
-At the start of Turn 4 a waypoint on the turn track was triggered that gave the
AI player reinforcements
-At the end of the game there's an evaluation that gives different dialogue depending on the victory conditions
Cadre Coronal Afterglow w1;d0;l0 
