BattleTech 'Mercenaries' Kickstarter - SHIPPING, SUPPORT AND STREET DATES (UPDATE #99)

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**H.B.M.C.**

I don't remember Savannah Masters being part of the KS...

**Flinty**

They weren't. Probably supposed to be a big reveal that didn't work quite aswell as the Shilone maneuver

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Liya has also released a video of the clan direct fire star being packed

**Ghaz**

And now something for those who were in the Kickstarter for the swag...

**Rosebuddy**

Is anything known about what the faction packs will be like? The most iconic/common mech of each size class? Some particular kind of lance, like heavy or medium? Are they aiming for just a BV?

**Ghaz**

Rosebuddy wrote:
Is anything known about what the faction packs will be like? The most iconic/common mech of each size class? Some particular kind of lance, like heavy or medium? Are they aiming for just a BV?

From a few pages back...

Ghaz wrote:
An in-depth review of the news from PAX Unplugged via the BattleTech Forums:

Lorcan Nagle wrote:OK, collating statements:

SLDF forcepacks
-One per quarter
-separate from the Kickstarter
-will be on the CGL store for sure, unsure about distribution
-image of painted Thunder Hawk shown
-Star League Command Lance out Q1. Contains Atlas II, Thunder Hawk, Phoenix Hawk Special, Orion.
-Other packs themed along other lines
-Second Star League pack will have Civil War designs
-One mini per forcepack will be pre-painted
-The Pre-paint will be a notable unit in each case
-Victor Davion's Daishi will be a pre-paint.
-They showed the Thunder Hawk photo again at this point, but this seems to be an error
-The minis will be easily repaintable, either by prime over or repaint.
-the pre-paints will all be minis that have variants available elsewhere
Randall added the following on Sunday:
-he showed the prototypes of the Command Lance, including a painted Orion. Orion is a hand-painted sample by a friend of Randall's named Jared. Randall said it's 90% of what you'll get from the factory.
-Randall reiterated the prepaints will be easy to paint over or strip.
-they will put out the pantone colours for the prepaint minis online if you want to match the colours on the rest of the lance packs.
-confirmed the prepaints will all be variants or reposes of existing mechs
-Second Star League Assault Lance: Daishi Prometheus (pre-paint), Emperor, Argus, Helios, Coolant Truck
-Third Star league Striker Forcepack: Lament, Jackalope, Kintaro, Hammerhead 2( or II), Havoc. J-27 Ammo Transport
-Third Star League Battle Star Forcepack: Savage Wolf Prime (Randall said basically Alaric's Mech so presumably this will be the pre-paint, which means a plastic Savage Wolf elsewhere as well?), Wendigo, Excalibur, Peacekeeper, Malice, Saviour Repair Vehicle
-They were signed off a few weeks ago, sketches and renders will be shared soon.

Faction forcepacks
-not part of the Kickstarter
-"we have many coming"
-Not just the Star league
-Will publish in 2024
-specifics will be forthcoming, Ray didn't let Randall give more detail.
-are being worked on in between the SLDF packs.

**niall78**

Pre-painted? Why bother unless you are going to do whole force packs for people that hate painting?

It's neither fish nor foul. Most will just wonder how to strip the bloody thing as they already have forces painted they want these mechs to fit into.

Been involved with the community for decades and never once have I heard of a demand for pre-painted miniatures. I find this course of action bizarre to be frank from CGL.

**Overread**

I can see the attraction. Whilst the Wargame market is very much keen for blank models to paint; the boardgame and DnD markets are much more middle of the road and many want prepainted models specifically.

What baffles me is including 1 prepainted alongside unpainted in a single set.

That doesn't appeal to either market.

The market that wants prepainted now has 1 model and the rest blank; whilst the market that doesn't want prepainted now has one model in a pack that's extra work to paint strip. Even if its the same colours as what they use now, it might be to a different style/standard.

It just seems like a really odd way to do it. If they were doing whole separate packs of prepainted that would make more sense.

**niall78**

Overread wrote:
I can see the attraction. Whilst the Wargame market is very much keen for blank models to paint; the boardgame and DnD markets are much more middle of the road and many want prepainted models specifically.

What baffles me is including 1 prepainted alongside unpainted in a single set.

That doesn't appeal to either market.

The market that wants prepainted now has 1 model and the rest blank; whilst the market that doesn't want prepainted now has one model in a pack that's extra work to paint strip. Even if its the same colours as what they use now, it might be to a different style/standard.

It just seems like a really odd way to do it. If they were doing whole separate packs of prepainted that would make more sense.

Neither fish nor foul.

If you are going to do it you need to do it by force pack.

Not sure if pre-paints would intice boardgamers to BT. Big step from Settlers of Catan to a very crunchy wargame. I'm dubious for any major drive into the boardgames market using pre-painted miniatures as the lures. Most boardgames come unpainted - paint isn't the reason boardgamers aren't playing wargames. Especially a game like BT where a lance can be painted as quick as the four adventurers in a Heroquest box.

**Ghaz**

niall78 wrote:
Pre-painted? Why bother unless you are going to do whole force packs for people that hate painting?

You can find a list of factions HERE on Sarna.net. Each faction could have dozens of different units with each having it's own unique paint scheme. Having them all painted would make as much sense as GW putting out prepainted Space Marines for the Direglaives chapter. As is we'll only have to strip the paint off of one mini instead of four or five.

The prepainted BattleMechs are Legendary MechWarriors. The three prepaints we know of are for Aleksandr Kerensky, Victor Steiner-Davion, and Alaric Ward. Also note that the pre-paints will all be minis that have variants available elsewhere so you won't have to strip the miniature and just get the unpainted one instead.

**niall78**

Ghaz wrote:
niall78 wrote:
Pre-painted? Why bother unless you are going to do whole force packs for people that hate painting?

You can find a list of factions HERE on Sarna.net. Each faction could have dozens of different units with each having it's own unique paint scheme. Having them all painted would make as much sense as GW putting out prepainted Space Marines for the Direglaives chapter. As is we'll only have to strip the paint off of one mini instead of four or five.

The prepainted BattleMechs are Legendary MechWarriors. The three prepaints we know of are for Aleksandr Kerensky, Victor Steiner-Davion, and Alaric Ward. Also note that the pre-paints will all be minis that have variants available elsewhere so you won't have to strip the miniature and just get the unpainted one instead.

Who are these three prepainted miniatures for?

Maybe I'm just not getting it. I just don't see the point. Are these for display? Maybe if they came in a force pack as a named character and their command lance - all prepainted. As it stands it's just random.

**Flinty**

CGL just got an injection of $7.5m they are probably just experimenting with something to see if it sticks. Probably too much of a risk to do whole packs, so they are compromising on just one, and coming up with a vague reason that can be consistent across a few packs.

If the quality is sufficiently high when deployed at scale and they can see some kind of demand I image they might stretch to whole prepai red Lance packs.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Market-research-by-fire

**Ghaz**

Starting at the 3:13:30 mark and summarized in my post above is all of the news we got on the prepainted models.

Flinty wrote:
CGL just got an injection of $7.5m they are probably just experimenting with something to see if it sticks. Probably too much of a risk to do whole packs, so they are compromising on just one, and coming up with a vague reason that can be consistent across a few packs.

If the quality is sufficiently high when deployed at scale and they can see some kind of demand I image they might stretch to whole prepai red Lance packs.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Market-research-by-fire

This is best (and only) answer we have at this time.

**niall78**

Flinty wrote:
CGL just got an injection of $7.5m they are probably just experimenting with something to see if it sticks. Probably too much of a risk to do whole packs, so they are compromising on just one, and coming up with a vague reason that can be consistent across a few packs.

If the quality is sufficiently high when deployed at scale and they can see some kind of demand I image they might stretch to whole prepai red Lance packs.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Market-research-by-fire

That makes a lot of sense.

If they were testing the waters wouldn't you merge the three prepaints add another and release a force pack fully painted. You're only risking one force pack release if it falls on its behind and you get the gauge the market for that type of product properly.

**Flinty**

Probably. But a whole prepainted force pack might be perceived to be cost prohibitive for a test. I'm just spitballing though. Made sense in my head, but I am neither a games designer or ,marketing specialist

**Overread**

Thing is if they are doing multiple prepainted models in different sets then they could afford to do them all in one set.

It just seems like a really unfocused idea right now. Who knows perhaps the factory wants the extra income pre-painting would generate and thus they are pushing for it to be included. So in the end they gave in and let there be one per pack for a few packs as an experiment.

If it works and people want more the factory gets what they want and the extra work; and if it fails they can turn around to the factory and show evidence that customers don't want it and that it doesn't improve sales.

Who knows perhaps somewhere is someone pushing for prepainting hoping for that "starwars" type market which extends outside of your general wargamer spaceship market

**H.B.M.C.**

Yeah, I'd rather all pre-painted, or none. Not one out of 4/5.

**Altruizine**

My guess is that Liya International made Catalyst some sort of offer, along the lines of "You know we have a paint department, right? Is that something you'd be interested in? If so, we can produce some for you for <free/discount> and you can see how your customers respond."

That could help explain the otherwise-bizarre decision to put a single painted mech in each lance pack. If the factory is doing it on spec it would be less disruptive to paint one mech during the production run of each lance pack than the whole pack.

**frankelee**

People should keep in mind that Catalyst is a company of sci-fi authors who have shown no natural instincts for the tabletop market at any turn. I think you can basically assume they're going to take routes that don't quite seem right, but so far they still arrive at the right destinations.

**niall78**

frankelee wrote:
People should keep in mind that Catalyst is a company of sci-fi authors who have shown no natural instincts for the tabletop market at any turn. I think you can basically assume they're going to take routes that don't quite seem right, but so far they still arrive at the right destinations.

Don't buy that for a second. CGL have driven the setting from near death - they helped revive the body - to rude health.

Were the two major kickstarters a 'show of no natural instincts'? Two of the most successful wargame kickstarters in history? A franchise in very good shape with a rapidly increasing fan base?

Where are you getting this from? You possibly have a few examples of their failures to show us?

**Flinty**

I think we will need to see how much more expensive the box with one prepaint is compared to none. All of the points above make as much sense to me as my own rambling

**frankelee**

Removed - rule #1 please.

**Ghaz**

From the BattleTech Forums:

Cubby wrote:
Juist to be sure when is force manual davion,kurita and mercenaries coming out

Davion - May
Kurita - 3rd Quarter
Mercs - 4th Quarter or possibly very early 2025

Cubby wrote:
When are the box sets with the 40th anniversary covers going to be released?

End of March or early April. They're supposed to be getting on a ship in the next week.

**Kothra**

Upcoming Releases for 2024

**Flinty**

That’s a lot of stuff.

So, prepainted Orion, Dashi/Prometheus, Lament, Savage Wolf/Madcat iv. I think they meant Daishi.

Are these good choices, or is the whole thing still so random as to make no difference

No mention of savannah masters, which is interesting, given the video leak a few days back.

**chaos0xomega**

maybe savannah masters are this campaigns shilone? I.e. free surprise gift?

**Flinty**

chaos0xomega wrote:
maybe savannah masters are this campaigns shilone? I.e. free surprise gift?

I think free gift might be pushing it, but I can see them opening the pledge manger again to add them on. Very happy if it was free, don't get me wrong, as we gave them an awful lot of money

**Ancestral Hamster**

Flinty wrote:
That’s a lot of stuff.

So, prepainted Orion, Dashi/Prometheus, Lament, Savage Wolf/Madcat iv. I think they meant Daishi.

I'm sure they did, as Dashi is a Japanese soup stock. If you've had miso soup, you've tasted dashi as it is the most common base stock for that soup.

Interested in the first and second Star League lances. The bonus support vehicles are of little interest to me, but they can always be used as objectives or just battlefield clutter.

**chaos0xomega**

im just happy for more mechs.

**Ghaz**

Flinty wrote:
chaos0xomega wrote:
maybe savannah masters are this campaigns shilone? I.e. free surprise gift?

I think free gift might be pushing it, but I can see them opening the pledge manger again to add them on. Very happy if it was free, don't get me wrong, as we gave them an awful lot of money

They won't be reopening the pledge manager.

**Flinty**

That’s a fair point as they won’t know if they have produced enough, and there will be some people wanting to order whole battalions of the things. Never mind, ignore me