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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.

Here Battletech has always been a gaming clubs staple, along with Blood Bowl, so we're more or less set.

 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.

As a wargamer in the US, I have been really surprised by the number of BT players I have run across in daily, corporate life by accident.

Many of them were IT or engineers.

 Easy E wrote:
Many of them were IT or engineers.

Considering the nature of the game, I am not surprised.

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.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Many of them were IT or engineers.

Considering the nature of the game, I am not surprised.

It's no Starfleet Battles.

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!

Nurglitch wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Many of them were IT or engineers.

Considering the nature of the game, I am not surprised.

It's no Starfleet Battles.

While true, Starfleet Battles isn't known for their ship construction.

Nurglitch wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Many of them were IT or engineers.

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.

http://b5warsvault.wikidot.com/

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.

 aphyon wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Many of them were IT or engineers.

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.

http://b5warsvault.wikidot.com/

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.

But who buys at MSRP/RRP?

Current prices for the Clan starter and pre-orders for the new Lance and Star packs are lower than KS.

The T-Shirts are really good. I added two more to my pledge. I'm wearing my Jade Falcon one right now.

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?

We don't know how Urbies will be sold in the future, so get as many as you can.

They are really neat but the lowest pledge level is $20 and shipping is about $12 ... $32 seems like a substantial “tax” for access to Urbanmechs.

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.

I pledged at the 1 dollar level. Then spent 100 into 3 Inner Sphere Lances and the 40 dollars "all the models in the AGoAC" box.

I'm just waiting for 2nd wave because of one of the IS lances, but I'm not in a hurry.

 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.

Gitzbitah, I already pre ordered the Tukayyid map pack at below KS price.

Hi everyone!

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?

Cheers!

 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. :-)

Thanks for the info!