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48 hour registered delivery for 20kg in a massive box. The UK just isn’t that big.

 Flinty wrote:
48 hour registered delivery for 20kg in a massive box. The UK just isn’t that big.

From where to where is also important, not to mention how it is being transported. Solely ground? Is air involved? Will they use a boat because the origin point is in mainland Europe? Are they using a shipping specialist or government post?

Those are answers I've not seen provided, even here in the US.

The UK is supposed to have a delivery hub, and postage everywhere in the country is basically flat rate, except for the really remote islands.

 Flinty wrote:
The UK is supposed to have a delivery hub, and postage everywhere in the country is basically flat rate, except for the really remote islands.

Yeah, "supposed to". Until I have a tracking number, I have no expectations as to the origin of shipping. As it is, I'm not sure I'm getting mine shipped from Florida, California, or Washington.

Postage is flat rate for government-based shipping. I don't think it's the same for FedEx, DHL, or non-government shipping.

epic ending to a succession wars battle

i had-
.battle master
.stalker
.marauder
.scorpion

My enemy had
.atlas
.awesome
.marauder
.griffin

At the end i was down just the scorpion facing off against a mostly undamaged awesome. i managed to hit him in the head with the PPC and scored a double 6 on the crit roll severing the head for a narrow victory. the terrible scorpion wins the day.

Thanks for continuing to share these little snippets drama and sacrifice parcelled up in a couple of pictures and a few paragraphs

So I picked up my 1st Star League Command Lance with the prepainted Orion, Atlas II, Phoenix Hawk 1B/1C and Thunderhawk. The first two mechs are "named characters" being Alex Kerensky and Theodore Kurita, with the Atlas II piloted either by Nicholas "Brat Prince" Kerensky or Devlin Stone. The remaining two are generic models, although pilot cards are provided. The Phoenix Hawk 1B/1C requires assembly: it has more of an action pose so the held medium laser would create a packaging problem if preassembled. The prepaint is better than I can do, so I can't fault them there. As I am painting some of my IS mechs as Eridani Light Horse, my choice of green does not match theirs. Oh well.

Might get the 2nd Star League assault lance, but will not buy anything ilkhan era. (Spits)

I've been busy with my painting, including a 1st Star League Command Lance.

Most of it has been with Battle Armor, though, at least in numbers.

Grenadier Assault/Heavy Battle Armor

Gray Death Standard Battle Armor

Second Set of Inner Sphere Standard Battle Armor

I also repainted the tops of my Gray Death Battle Armor to match the Gray Death Standard to be used as Gray Death Scout Battle Armor.

And because I like to see the difference in size of models, someone else might, so a Perspective Shot.

Loads of stuff this weekend.

while waiting for the main event we did a quick 3050 battle between my lyrans and some mercs-



then i got to advance the timeline to 3067 for some light and medium action-





Then it was time for the main event-clan invasion 3050 4 players with the inner sphere using forced withdrawal rules and the clanners fighting to the last.

The clan side
.dire wolf
.war hawk
.timber wolf
.stormcrow
.viper

My force-
.marauder
.thunderbolt
.rifleman
.guest player in a wolverine

My davion allies-
heavy guards-
.atlas
.archer
.warhammer
.blackjack

.crucius lancers
.atlas
.ceasar
.archer
.griffon

Surprisingly there were not that many one shot kills. many minor head hits, a couple big ammo explosions and near the end we got super lucky and nailed that annoying viper/dragonfly in the head with a gauss.

The only real high point for my lance was early on when my marauder putting down the stormcrow with a triple floating crit to the center torso with his large pulse.

We managed to take the clanner down to 2 heavily damaged mechs....the timber wolf and warhawk. unfortunately by that point all we had left was an equally messsed up atlas.

Clanners win another narrow victory against overwhelming odds. as one would expect in 3050.

lots of pictures of this one-

the starting positions as the clans try and take the facility-





Then things got hot-





the lines thin-



Near the end-

It is a fun game

I wish I could play local games on a scenery filled table like that! It would certainly make me like Classic better.

I'm rapidly tiring of my group only playing head-to-head matches on 2x2 mapsheets or pairs of the neoprene maps. Last week after a full year I finally played my first Battletech game that even included buildings, because it used the Grasslands map with the base on it!

Mostly it's long, slogging games among the endless box canyons and across the giant's causeways that the mapsheets illustrate hills as.

This is our usual scenario set up, though BV, unit types, and tech level often change.


We have also, at times, stolen borrowed from the 40K terrain and just use Miniature Rules.

Yeah at my local store it's basically 10,000BV2, Clan Invasion. We are pretty lax about force requirements, as long as you aren't being "that guy". Mostly any mech that is from 3060 or before, as long as you play casual. SLDF royals, bring an ancient Mackie, play a unique like Bounty Hunter in his 3015/3044 Marauder, etc. are fine. But no real scenarios or victory points, just basic deathmatches.

I've brought up the idea of hexless play with terrain on mats (mostly from seeing your games on here!!) but have had no interest from the other players as they say that the terrain on hexmaps are more interesting than 3D terrain. Which is bummer, as I think that what I have seen of hexless play is less 'fiddly" than constantly counting hexes, and true line of sight is just plain easier overall.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Yeah at my local store it's basically 10,000BV2, Clan Invasion. We are pretty lax about force requirements, as long as you aren't being "that guy". Mostly any mech that is from 3060 or before, as long as you play casual. SLDF royals, bring an ancient Mackie, play a unique like Bounty Hunter in his 3015/3044 Marauder, etc. are fine. But no real scenarios or victory points, just basic deathmatches.

Do you have anyone setting the scenario before hand, or is it just, "everyone shows up and that's what they all have", kind of thing?

We've had someone who used to run ClixTech tournaments organizing MOST of ours, and that's more or less what he used during there. It encourages different build styles than pure MurderTech.

Sometimes someone gets an idea and suggests it to him, and we try it out. One of the more fun ones, thanks to his HeroScape collection, is doing a King of The Hill scenario. Bring an Introtech Heavy, or a pair within X range, and try to take the top.

I'm currently working on developing a Capture the Flag scenario based on Halo/Red vs Blue Blood Gulch simply using the bases in the Grasslands Map arranged opposite each other. I put it to a vote which style they'd like to see, and so far Halo is winning, but I offered a Team Fortress option, too. Once I get it finalized, I'll post it here for anyone who wants to try it.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I've brought up the idea of hexless play with terrain on mats (mostly from seeing your games on here!!) but have had no interest from the other players as they say that the terrain on hexmaps are more interesting than 3D terrain. Which is bummer, as I think that what I have seen of hexless play is less 'fiddly" than constantly counting hexes, and true line of sight is just plain easier overall.

I won't agree that hexmaps are less interesting than 3D terrain. I've seen some amazing maps both in 2D and 3D. However, I will agree that it is less fiddly and less prone to someone doing the infamous "Eldar Drift" while moving their models using hexmaps.

AegisGrimm wrote:I wish I could play local games on a scenery filled table like that! It would certainly make me like Classic better.

I'm rapidly tiring of my group only playing head-to-head matches on 2x2 mapsheets or pairs of the neoprene maps. Last week after a full year I finally played my first Battletech game that even included buildings, because it used the Grasslands map with the base on it!

Mostly it's long, slogging games among the endless box canyons and across the giant's causeways that the mapsheets illustrate hills as.

AegisGrimm wrote:Yeah at my local store it's basically 10,000BV2, Clan Invasion. We are pretty lax about force requirements, as long as you aren't being "that guy". Mostly any mech that is from 3060 or before, as long as you play casual. SLDF royals, bring an ancient Mackie, play a unique like Bounty Hunter in his 3015/3044 Marauder, etc. are fine. But no real scenarios or victory points, just basic deathmatches.

I've brought up the idea of hexless play with terrain on mats (mostly from seeing your games on here!!) but have had no interest from the other players as they say that the terrain on hexmaps are more interesting than 3D terrain. Which is bummer, as I think that what I have seen of hexless play is less 'fiddly" than constantly counting hexes, and true line of sight is just plain easier overall.

I find the 3d terrain play much more fluid and intuitive. aside from the fact the tables look way more immersive and inviting (and being an experienced mini wargamer with other systems that use 3d terrain). the other problem i have with hex maps is reading the fine print on the hexes, differentiating the elevation etc... our group also speeds things up a bit by skipping the declare fire phase entirely and using fire as you bear rules. so shots are not wasted on dead units. the very old ammo explosion rules from max tech also really speed things along. especially when there are units around without case.

Many of the guys use BV especially for scenarios with miss matched numbers. outside of a framework for games like that i find BV pretty pointless for pick up games, as the crit systems exists, pilot damage exists etc... when i play we typically pick an era from where units can be taken from, give them all standard pilots (IS 4/5 clan 3/4) with the lance or star commander being an ace with 1 better stats. post 3051+ we use the book recommended force allocation of 1 star VS 2 lances when facing off against the opposite sides(with forced withdrawal rules in effect). succession wars era 3050 or prior we bring 3 lances VS 1 star as set up in the game i posted. it ends up being a pretty close game in my 30 or so years of experience of playing the game.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
The UK is supposed to have a delivery hub, and postage everywhere in the country is basically flat rate, except for the really remote islands.

Yeah, "supposed to". Until I have a tracking number, I have no expectations as to the origin of shipping. As it is, I'm not sure I'm getting mine shipped from Florida, California, or Washington.

Postage is flat rate for government-based shipping. I don't think it's the same for FedEx, DHL, or non-government shipping.

Mate, the UK is smaller than Commiefornia. We are smaller than most of the States. Hence why theres a lot of discussion around just how absurd these prices are. Plus, as I have mentioned on the last page, I have bought parcels - large, 300ish KG parcels - from Japan and paid far, far, less in shipping to my door than these jokers charged.

No, each night of Battletech is basically two or three 1v1 games being played at the same time where each player brings 10k of mechs, Clan Invasion era, with no more than 6 mechs on each side, played as basic deathmatches.

We had a brief stint before Randall Bills made his visit to our store where I got everyone to play Alpha Strike for about 4-5 weeks in a row (we game every Wednesday) as a kind of "prep" for his big Alpha Strike event, and most of those games were 2v2 where each player brought 250pts, and usually it was a variation of King of the Hill, sometimes with multiple "hills".

Unfortunately I don't have enough of a working knowledge yet of Classic to be a big pusher for scenario play.

I'm on a Battle Armor kick lately, it seems. I have 17 bases of Elementals to post today! That's a lot of small detail work that's a little hard for my fat finger potato painting capacity.

I'm trying out a new style, trying to do a little Hell's Horses Delta Galaxy color scheme (though, not the stripy style).

First off, some good Heavy Battle Armor. GNOMES!

Some quick ponies for the Horses. BURAQS!

And because I'm devoting myself to this new scheme, I need some... ELEMENTALS!

And of course, another Perspective Shot. Number 7!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

master of ordinance wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
The UK is supposed to have a delivery hub, and postage everywhere in the country is basically flat rate, except for the really remote islands.

Yeah, "supposed to". Until I have a tracking number, I have no expectations as to the origin of shipping. As it is, I'm not sure I'm getting mine shipped from Florida, California, or Washington.

Postage is flat rate for government-based shipping. I don't think it's the same for FedEx, DHL, or non-government shipping.

Mate, the UK is smaller than Commiefornia. We are smaller than most of the States. Hence why theres a lot of discussion around just how absurd these prices are. Plus, as I have mentioned on the last page, I have bought parcels - large, 300ish KG parcels - from Japan and paid far, far, less in shipping to my door than these jokers charged.

I'm not in Commiefornia, though close enough to be infected by those who can't make it across the country, but it is bigger than the UK (to say nothing than about half my ancestor's Scotland, which is a reluctant smaller part).

Was your shipping from Japan done by air? If so, what speed? What if the transport hub is in Germany so all that fun Brexit stuff getting involved, and they're shipping to the UK by air?

So, again, without a tracking number and knowing all the details, it can be a bit presumptuous to toss all shipping in to one basket. I've worked for FedEx and UPS, and can tell you that there are a LOT of things that go in to calculating shipping that the normal person just doesn't see. Of course, it could also just be QML being aft ejection ports, too.

AegisGrimm wrote:No, each night of Battletech is basically two or three 1v1 games being played at the same time where each player brings 10k of mechs, Clan Invasion era, with no more than 6 mechs on each side, played as basic deathmatches.

So, basically, it's "everyone shows up and that's what they all have". No more than 6 Mechs to a side can be crippling to someone who is playing against the Clans, honestly. Of course, at 10K, they likely aren't bringing a full Star, unless they're doing Ice Hellions.

Note sure what paints your using but they look very caked on. i usually do my base color in krylon from the local walmart and detail colors with model color, finished with a wash.

 Charistoph wrote:

AegisGrimm wrote:No, each night of Battletech is basically two or three 1v1 games being played at the same time where each player brings 10k of mechs, Clan Invasion era, with no more than 6 mechs on each side, played as basic deathmatches.

So, basically, it's "everyone shows up and that's what they all have". No more than 6 Mechs to a side can be crippling to someone who is playing against the Clans, honestly. Of course, at 10K, they likely aren't bringing a full Star, unless they're doing Ice Hellions.

Yeah it can be rough. I am relatively new and that coupled with my godawful bad luck has me with an almost unbroken losing streak over the last 8-10 games.

Bad luck as when I played a recent game against a Clan force, my Marauder, Thunderbolt, Wolverine and Wraith all firing together took 6 full turns to kill an Executioner.

I would have had a Battlemaster in the mix during that battle, but in another show of horrible luck, my opponent managed to kill it on turn 3 with a single turn of firing with a Gargoyle's 2x SRM6's. The first two SRM's to hit both did through-armor crits to the center torso, which both proceeded to EACH roll 2 Crits, and the first three were Engine hits.

Nah your bad luck is nothing compared to our team of seatbelt checkers and self detonating players. they tend to do more damage to them selves than we do to them in the game.

Our scenario organizer usually has the capacity to commonly roll To-Hit -1. We swear he has an aura where even being close to your rolls, your rolls will be cursed. Heck, for the first 2 years I played, I wasn't much different.

He also has an interesting capacity to hit where the Armor is strongest.

So don't feel alone.

 Charistoph wrote:
Our scenario organizer usually has the capacity to commonly roll To-Hit -1. We swear he has an aura where even being close to your rolls, your rolls will be cursed. Heck, for the first 2 years I played, I wasn't much different.

At my old store in the 90's/early 2000's, we called people that exude a bad roll aura like that Dice Titans. Store even had a Warlord made of artillery and scatter dice made to award to whomever was the current Dice Titan.

Small plug for the BT fans.

Just put up my 40 Battletech novel collection in the swap shop. Includes The Sword and the Dagger.

Mechwarrior novel collection to follow soon.

Did a 3050 clan on clan battle where i decided to take out some odd mech loadouts.

My side
.Bowman 2
.Timber wolf C
.Warhawk C
.Stormcrow C
.Adder A

The other side
.Gargoyle
.Timber wolf
.Mad dog
.Stormcrow
.a point of epona hovercraft







It was a brutal fight, looked like it was going bad for me but the timber wolf turned it around taking down the last mech (gargoyle) leaving only the 2 epona's alive on the table. Since my mech was jump capable i could force him to play catch up with me with all the high terrain features on the table. so we ended it there.

Figured I'd post this here, because I've been properly bitten by the BattleTech bug by now, having uh, picked up both the Alpha Strike and Game of Armoured Combat sets recently. If the set containing the Bushwacker was available locally, I would've gotten that one as well. 😅

Not sure what they put in the fluff of this setting, but I am quite hooked. Aside from reading through Fox Tales, which is a bit Young Adult in its writing, I've been gorging on fluff through both Sarna and YouTube. I've also been watching gameplay tutorials by 4 Hands on Deck, who've done a great job explaining the core mechanics enough to me that I've gone and gotten some actual demo games in with the starter box mechs, still fluffing things up with GATOR, but slowly getting there.

As a side-effect of this, I've also found a drive to paint again, something I've been struggling with for a long, long time now for well, raisins. Maybe it's trying something in a new setting, maybe it's GIANT ROBOTS in pintsized format that's doing it for me, letting me paint stuff without sweating too much about the fine details? I may or may not have also committed crimes against fluff, but I'm sure I can get away with those hehe.

I thought I did a good job of painting up the starter box mechs as units belonging to the Lyran Commonwealth and Draconis Combine respectively, only to find out that they actually belong to the Federated Suns (Davion Guards?) and the Capellan Confederation, because the Vindicator is hardly seen anywhere else apparently, whoops! 😅



Also, these guys.



The Angry Pickle and Large Ricky, based on the loveable chungus currently acting as my avatar. They were really fun to paint and in case of Large Ricky, fun to try and convert, who would've thought that a spare Avenger gatling cannon from an Aeronautice Thunderbolt would make for a great rotary AC5 and a pair of needle pistol grips could make for the bulges that are Ricky's eyes? I am quite pleased with how well they look on the tabletop. Now that I understand the rules a bit better, I also now know why they are what they are in the setting.

Right now drying next to me is a Madcat in Eridani colours, as a homage to Mechwarrior 3, dotting in the missiles in the pods is a right pain in the arse alright! After that, maybe a Battlemaster, belonging to whatever unit the one of the cover of Rolling Thunder belongs to. Also the first time seeing a mech that is a two-seater.

But yeah, having fun with something hobby related for the first time in a long time now. 🤘🏻

 BrookM wrote:
I thought I did a good job of painting up the starter box mechs as units belonging to the Lyran Commonwealth and Draconis Combine respectively, only to find out that they actually belong to the Federated Suns (Davion Guards?) and the Capellan Confederation, because the Vindicator is hardly seen anywhere else apparently, whoops! 😅

You did a good job at painting.

And don't worry about who is painted what, so long as you're happy with the colors. There is trade between nations, particularly those whose border isn't broad, so a Combine soldier in a Capellan Vindicator isn't unusual. The Griffin is fairly ubiquitous as well. In addition, 'Mechs are salvaged all the time and put back in to play against the enemy, so a Davion Guard Vindicator wouldn't be unheard of.

That's one of the best parts of the universe. Give enough time and there's plenty of reason why Faction A has its hands on equipment that is produced only by Faction D.

Yep nice work! now the hard part-choosing a faction, that happens when you get into the lore. in fact i play specific units outlined in the field manuals-
Kurita-second swords of light and 2nd deiron regulars
Steiner-10th lyran guards
Clan hells horse-iota galaxy

While you can mix and match, take mercenary forces etc... there is also a bit of fun in staying with thematic forces fielding variants or proprietary mechs and vehicles for each faction.

The really great thing about the game is you can play any era with any of the myriad of official optional rules with the same minis and the core mechanics for the games have not changed in many decades.

Thanks guys!

Picking a faction will be a tough one indeed, though taking a merc company or some Periphery militia seem like great options, in the meantime I am going to keep on absorbing fluff and poke away at models. I may or may not have also ordered the Clan Invasion boxed set.

Is there any word on whether or not the Essentials box will be sold elsewhere overtime, or is it a Target only product until they stop producing it? Because it'd be a pity if a Solaris themed starter was limited to one vendor only.

Also, repost from elsewhere; I played five games using the introduction rules today, I took to the field in the blue one, my friend was the red one. 😉

The first two games really didn't go my way, abysmal rolling on my part, plus some pretty good rolls from my opponent, who in game one pretty much shot my torso out and in the second game blew away my entire right side, disarming me and forcing me to resign.

Come the third game, I bravely decided to set up camp in a forest, much to the annoyance of my opponent, who wanted a straight up fight, but had a much harder time hitting me and after way too much shooting, I managed to win.



Fourth game was more of an open slug match, with us walking around exchanging fire, took forever, but I finally managed to down my opponent.

Final game, here I decided to go all out and take the fight to her, instead of the other way round, trying to be as in her face as possible, which wound up saving me, as running made me harder to hit, paired with about the only really good rolls of the day! This game was over in two rounds, as I managed to land both PPC shots on the centre torso. 🤘🏻



My pilot earned herself a nickname, at first she was called "Crash" mockingly by my opponent because of my rather lacklustre performance, but after the final game, where I charged in like a loon, it took on a whole other meaning.

Really enjoyed it, still need to look at the reference sheet way too much, but it was fun and the last game was one of those pissing-yourself-with-laughter kind of moments you get in a game sometimes. Next time, we'll give it a go with the rules for heat management and criticals in play.

Changing gears a bit, battle tech is a great game in the sense it can be played in any setting at any level of scale. So we scaled up...way up to space combat with warships.

I got some of the guys at the store interested in building up faction specific fleets.

On the plus side aerotech warships only number in the dozens not the hundreds for mechs and vehicles.

My fleet for both games was a Lyran force

.Mjolnir
.Tharkad
.Sovetskii soyuz
.Mako

I had a delay in shipping so the only actual correct ship i had was the Mjolnir, i had to proxy the rest.

The first game was against clans
.Mckenna
.Liberator
.conqueror
.York

I got incredibly lucky against the Mckenna-hit the bridge 2 times with through armor criticals. causing it to spin out of control and exit the battle space.

The little Mako was the luckiest ship in both games. this game it survived with a single internal structure point left. i did lose the Mjolnir as the clans managed to maneuver behind it, but i did manage to eliminate the remaining clan warships.





Game 2 i was facing
.Avalon
.Kirishima
.Fox
.Whirlwind

This game ended up being a real slog. i ended up taking out his entire fleet, with no major losses, even the lucky little Mako survived again with 5 internal structure left, but missing all it's armor on 3 facings and then some. the Avalon was the hardest thing to take down as expected with the Davions flagship class of ship.