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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.

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.

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.

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.

And an update: One Death Commando done as a test. Decal turned out well, I think.

Thanks! I'll have pics of the rest of the Lance today once the varnish finishes drying. Then I'll work on their Davion opponents.

Update: Lance is finished.

A Lu Wei Bing.

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.

You can also use dice like these:



That you can get here.

I've got a set of these (without the text) and they're great for keeping track of mech movement.

I've seen 6k-8k talked about as the standard amount of BV for pickups.

As for factions:

Vollone Lancers - Mercs, mixed vehicles/mechs for the Succession Wars and Clan Invasion

Jade Falcons - Delta Galaxy, from the kickstarter

Comstar - from the kickstarter

Federated Commonwealth - 8th Crucis Lancers, Dark Age Alpha Strike demo

Capellan Confederation - Death Commandoes, Dark Age Alpha Strike demo

Vescovi's Minotaurs - ex-RAF mercenaries, Dark Age

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.

First of the angry green birbs have rolled off the production line:





And my merc company got its command lance (actually the Warhammer will be part of the battle lance, with the Battlemaster taking its place):



They'll need a vehicle company to match the Jade Falcons in points for my planned Alpha Strike game.

It looks like a pretty big box for just four miniatures. Maybe there are some battlepods in there too.

I finished the rest of my generic mercenary force.

I wanted to have a company of armor to accompany the mech company, as I like how Alpha Strike seems to allow for an easier combined arms experience.

The main punch of the armored company is a lance of Manticores.


Close range support is covered by a lance of Bulldogs and SRM carriers.


Another mixed lance of Galleons and LRM carriers. Galleons scout and spot while the LRM carriers add to the long range fire of the Manticores.


And a pair of Warrior helis for long-range recon.

beast_gts wrote:
At least you're involved - I play Hell's Horses and I have no idea what we're up to.

Maybe it'll get covered in the Tamar Rising book? With the Jade Falcons gone, their former occupation zone is free real estate.

It will be interesting to see where they take the IlClan era, based on the very few glimpses of 3250 content there's been. There's a Star League Loremaster with a Jade Falcon bloodname, so they will still exist in some capacity, the difference between Clan and IS tech is "basically meaningless," and one of the opposition elements to the IlCan Star League are Renegades.

Not surprised, after seeing a convo in the BPL section of the Battletech discord that was encouraging people to shoot lefty's in the face that wasn't addressed. The BPL crowd has always seemed to lean towards the 4channy, gak-posting side of the internet, which is why I stopped backing his patreon and dropped out of the discord.

It's the old problem with the "nazis in the bar" anecdote. They creep in where they can, set up, and bring in others. If they're not rooted out from the get-go, then trying to get them out when they're entrenched is a painful, if not impossible situation.

From his apology, it seems like some people suggested that Tex talk to Arch, instead of Arch reaching out to Tex or, if Tex is to be believed, any attempt of Tex himself to collaborate. It a shame that people are overreacting. Hopefully things calm down and Tex will take a little more care in the future to his collaborations.

I got my Wave 2 package! Fire Star for my Jade Falcons, and the two Level IIs to start my Comstart Level III.

The Shilone is pretty nice, though a little bent but nothing a quick dip in hot water won't fix.

Initiative deck looks nice and comes with a little rulebook on how to use it.

Also picked up the desert mapsheet pack to expand my collection.

Some of the desert maps:





The double feature airstrip is pretty nice.

As for the initiative deck, it's a 67 card deck with standard poker numbers (ace through king), with the suits replaced by the Successor Lords houses, the face cards replaced with Mechwarrior, Duke, and Successor Lord cards, and two random Star League cards instead of Jokers. There's a suit ranking that's not surprising = Davion>Kurita>Steiner>Marik>Liao.

Each card has its own little special effect written on it that can differ between factions.





The method for using them is a little wonky, using a control deck to randomly pick cards that match the number already issued out to players or groups of miniatures.

I'm looking for a little help designing a scenario for a club game in March.

I've got a Merc company that I'd like to go up against a Kuritan force in 3039.

The mercs have a company of three lances:

Battlemaster
Awesome
Rifleman
Catapult

Warhammer
Thunderbolt
Shadow Hawk
Wolverine

Phoenix Hawk
Wasp
Commando
Locust

I'm looking for a decent Kuritan force from the IS Lance Packs. I figure the Support Lance pack and the Strike Lance packs would work, as long as I swap the Wolfound for something else (maybe one of the mechs from the new 2 player starter set). But I don't know what third Lance pack to add to balance out the Kuritans.

Steiner (IS) vs Jade Falcon (Clan). Easy blue vs green.

Like Hamster said, Camo Specs says you can't go wrong with blue on your Steiner mechs. And Jade Falcon's Delta Galaxy is pretty iconic, green mechs with yellow highlighted panels.