BattleTech 'Mercenaries' Kickstarter - EU WRAPS UP, WAVE 4 NEWS (UPDATE #130)

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**Ghaz**

Today's Tuesday Newsday:

A brief recap of the most important parts grabbed out of the comments section of the Kickstarter:

QML has posted on Facebook that the next round of address verification are expected to go out in 2 weeks.

Tuesday stream:

Good news on the international front, UK and Australia hubs are nearly ready to start shipping. Specifically: UK has got VAT approval, and Australia has recently resolved that last of the road blocks.

EU is still waiting on VAT approval. Shipping in the EU should start once that's sorted.

No new for Asia right now.

A small number of shipments to Latin America have gone out via QML.

As to who the international HUB are. QML is handling all customer service for all hub. The international hubs do not have any staff assigned to customer service. Therefore they do not want backer contacting the international HUBs. This is why they are not relieving the identity of those HUBs.

And the recap from the BattleTech Forums:

Lorcan Nagle wrote:Episode 19. Guest Johannes Heidler, BattleTech developer.

Live streamed on 9th July 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S0VjPUHMKU

News:
-There's reluctance to share info on the regional hubs when customer service is meant to go through QML.
-UK VAT requirements have been approved, shipments are being loaded into warehouses now.
-EU VAT requirements are still awaiting approval and some of the Norse Foundry and other little bits are still on the way, should be ready to fulfill soon.
-Australia is ready to go and should be commencing soon.
-Asia has no update right now
-Canada/ROW has begun shipping

-They will be putting up spaces online to ask questions for Tuesday Newsday if you can't make it to chat.
-Freddie Prinze Jr's group did a test game at the weekend, Prinze's team won, and included his YouTube producer, Sam Witwer and Macualy Culkin
-CGL will be doing a run of UrbanMech legion hoodies in honour of Conner Coleman, options are pink with black text/image and black with pink text/image, as Conner's favourite colour was pink
-RecGuide volume 2: ilClan went live on the CGL store earlier. Johannes was there to talk about the project

-The RecGuides as a project pulled in a lot of old writers and new ones as well.
-For the Classics side of things they wanted to ensure they could keep the feel of the original designs while updating them
-The mission statement was to make the minis from the Clan Invasion Kickstarter relevant for the 3150s
-Johannes talked about the art homages in the RecGuide chapter openings, like the Warhammer IIc/Marauder IIc fight being a callback to TRO:3055 and the Stinger sitting like Rodin's The Thinker being a homage to art from Volume 3, issue 2 of Stardate magazine (he actually bought the latter piece from Natán Meléndez, the artist for all the chapter title images). Gideon, who drew the original Stardate art had died in the intervening years and there's a reference to Gideon in the Stinger writeup in the RecGuide.
-They had a bit of a chat about unit naming, which can be whimsical but often leads to a lot of arguments between the developers, and in the end people often forget who actually came up with the name. Johannes called out the Alpha Wolf as one where they're aware that the idea of Alpha males has been debunked, they felt it fit the mech. When they came up with the name Jade Phoenix the person doing the writeup for the mech ran with it and came up with the whole "has some of the armour of Aidan Pryde's Mad Cat" thing as a result.
- They also chatted about unit design philosophy. This can be tied up in the mission statement for the project. BattleTech stats can be cosy, and they can be boring. Every unit needs some level of purpose to stand out amongst the thousands of designs. You tend not to start with the stats, preferring a hook but there are exceptions. With the RecGuides some of the units had been designed in advance like the new Wolf mechs, from there Johannes had the idea of bird-themed Falcon mechs to have bad guys to match the Wolves as nominal good guys.
Johannes was very pleased at getting so many old vehicles from the setting that hadn't been statted up before into the RecGuides

Q&A:
-How does someone get involved in mech design? Johannes got his start by being a long-time contributor of errata on the forums. Other people have been recruited via forum activity or other contribution like being on the Demo Team or submitting to Shrapnel. Unit design tends to be quite closed off even inside the BattleTech volunteer/freelancer pool.
-When designing a unit to you discuss drawbacks, is there a reason for some units to have more severe drawbacks? They shy away from optimisation and as such units tend to be designed with deliberate drawbacks. They tend not to go in with specific drawbacks in mind, one of the last ones Johannes could think of was the Stalker II's small cockpit in XTRO: Marik.
-Will people coming to big cons like Gencon or Essen get a chance to talk design with Johannes? Essen is more of a possibility (Johannes lives in Germany)
-Any update on the McCarron's Armoured Cav, Davion and Kurita Forcepacks? Big MAC is getting ready, no update on the others. There'll be a better update soon. Ray says no update right now in the chat.
-Any chance of fiction in historical events? Rem will pass the question to John Helfers. They're not planning on livestreaming from GenCon like they did the last couple of years and pre-recording panels and games instead, so Rem will try and have an answer for the fiction panel.
-Any more videos coming up? Stuff like the Crescent Hawks is on the nice to do list but they're expensive and take a lot of project management. Rem only gets one day a week to work on content so it's slow going. Bryan Young will be doing more short pieces like the ads and little profiles.
-Any update on store credit from Clan Invasion Kickstarter? Rem will follow-up with Talon.
-What is the definition of Waves 1-3 for shipping? Rem isn't sure, but her understanding is: Wave 1 is everyone who had their final address details in by December. Wave 2 are people who made changes when CGL put out an email for address updates, and Wave 3 are people who changed their address from the QML requests for address updates.
-someone asked about Kickstarter odrer prioritisation, Rem repeated the quote from last week.

And along with Freddie Prinze, Jr and Sam Witwer, this guy plays BattleTech

Spoiler:

**deleted20250424**

Cool, more address verification emails!

In two weeks.......

**Sabotage!**

TalonZahn wrote:
Cool, more address verification emails!

In two weeks.......

Yeah.....I was figuring I'd have my stuff by early August, and now I'm a bit worried as I will likely be out of my house by early September.

**Altruizine**

I'm in Canada and I received my box today.

Got one of the 6008 tooseen in a dud salvage box (and no compensatory extra box, so I guess my stuff was already processing/packed when that issue was discovered).

Pretty happy with all the loot.

I was kinda worried about getting poorly-moulded or assembled figs -- much of the early Clan Invasion stuff I bought had issues... floppy guns, bent legs, carelessly posed stances, etc.

Those issues seemed to be mostly cleared up as reprints rolled out, but I was paranoid that the first wave of Mercenaries releases would suffer similarly.

But I didn't notice many problems. One of my multi-barreled tanks has a barrel that's shorter than the others, one of my Visigoths isn't quite plumb down the centre, and my Flea has one canted arm. The barrel on my SM1 Tank Destroyer is a bit droopy and crooked, which is the only flaw out of the group that annoys me.

**Dysartes**

Does the plastic they've used respond to hot water / cold water as a fix, Altruizine, do do you need to give the tank a little blue pill to clear it up?

Did I see something when the Salvage Pack issue came up about contacting QML if you did get one with a vehicle in it, or is my memory bating me again?

**Miguelsan**

Asia as usual are the redheaded stepchildren of the project.
Given the shipping charged next time I'll just go to Liya's factory to pick up my mechs.

M.

**Altruizine**

Dysartes wrote:
Does the plastic they've used respond to hot water / cold water as a fix, Altruizine, do do you need to give the tank a little blue pill to clear it up?

Did I see something when the Salvage Pack issue came up about contacting QML if you did get one with a vehicle in it, or is my memory bating me again?

Hot/cold has worked on their plastic in the past, although not as well as it would on HIPS since theirs seems to have more memory. The tank destroyer is an awkward design for that process, however, since the barrel is sunk into the body of the vehicle and the whole vehicle would need to be immersed (as opposed to being able to spot treat the affected zone). I might try it, or I might just let the little guy live his drowsy, floppy life.

AFAIK they announced that there would be an upcoming solution for people who didn't get the automatic extra salvage box, but that they were still working out the details.

**Dysartes**

Well, here's hoping they sort something out for you.

**Kanluwen**

If the barrel's hollow, you could always try heating up a finishing nail and inserting it into the gun barrel.

**Ghaz**

Dysartes wrote:Did I see something when the Salvage Pack issue came up about contacting QML if you did get one with a vehicle in it, or is my memory bating me again?

Altruizine wrote:AFAIK they announced that there would be an upcoming solution for people who didn't get the automatic extra salvage box, but that they were still working out the details.

From Update #95:

For those who have already received a shipment, or have a shipment already in the mail, we are working on the best way to correct this for you. Because of the holiday weekend, please give us some time to find the best way to do this in collaboration with Liya and QML.

On the small chance that anyone received TWO vehicles in the same shipment we will work with you individually to correct this mistake. We will post instructions next week so we can resolve this as efficiently as possible.

That is the latest news we have on the matter.

**Flinty**

Someone on the comments had received no Galleons in their Mercs box, so there are definitely some QC issues at play. Pretty sure CGL will make it all good, it will just take time for them to sort it all out.

@Altruzine - worth just removing it ans replacing with a nice straight brass or plastic rod?

**legionaires**

I just got an email for the digital content. Did the folks who already got the pledges get the digital notice just before the shipping notice?

**Gitzbitah**

legionaires wrote:
I just got an email for the digital content. Did the folks who already got the pledges get the digital notice just before the shipping notice?

I just got my digital content email as well. What an excellent question, thank you!

**deleted20250424**

Don't get your hopes up.

I believe that went out to everyone. I was in Backerkit the other day and 95% of the Digital stuff was ready to download.

So they probably just confirmed it was at 100% and sent the EMails to everyone.

**frankelee**

I just got my shipment in. I was one of the people who got an email on July 2nd to confirm your address by the 5th. I did not get the additional bonus salvage pack, but I did end up with three accidental tanks.

**Gimgamgoo**

I'm a late backer and I heard people talking about digital content. I went into my Backerkit on Monday and found a load of downloads. Today I received an email saying there was updated digital content, so I looked again - nothing that I hadn't downloaded.

I guess they put up all the stuff first and have been emailing out since.

And being in the UK, I don't think it means anything to do with shipping.

**Sabotage!**

frankelee wrote:
I just got my shipment in. I was one of the people who got an email on July 2nd to confirm your address by the 5th. I did not get the additional bonus salvage pack, but I did end up with three accidental tanks.

The problem may be bigger than Catalyst originally thought. One of the guys in our play group got his, and he got two accidental vehicles out of 4 salvage boxes. I’ve seen a few other people having similar experiences to you also.

**Ghaz**

Sabotage! wrote:
The problem may be bigger than Catalyst originally thought.

It's also possible that the problem is limited to one or more production runs of Salvage Boxes and those happened to be the first chosen to be used for fulfillment. Really, we'd have to wait and see how widespread the problem is and if anyone outside of the US and Canada are affected.

**frankelee**

Yeah, my working assumption would be the boxes weren't that randomized, so if you get one tank, your odds of a second tank are much higher than random because the dude in the warehouse is grabbing from the tank pile.

But then, I don't know that, they could have way more tanks than they realize.

**Ghaz**

frankelee wrote:
Yeah, my working assumption would be the boxes weren't that randomized, so if you get one tank, your odds of a second tank are much higher than random because the dude in the warehouse is grabbing from the tank pile.

But then, I don't know that, they could have way more tanks than they realize.

If the particular model isn't being used for what you're packing at the time, then it shouldn't be in the packing area. This would have been an error on someone who was a supervisor or above IMHO.

**Ancestral Hamster**

Gimgamgoo wrote:
I'm a late backer and I heard people talking about digital content. I went into my Backerkit on Monday and found a load of downloads. Today I received an email saying there was updated digital content, so I looked again - nothing that I hadn't downloaded.

Although not a late backer, I've had the same experience. Someone here mentioned a week or so ago that the digital content was up, and I downloaded it then. Just got the backer e-mail today, and it lists all the stuff I downloaded previously. So TalonZahn is probably right that now that they've confirmed everything is up, they've e-mailed all the backers.

Tangentially, I'm no longer enthusiastic about this KS. I'll get a brief burst of interest when my physical rewards come in, but right now BT and Alpha Strike are not in my hobby space. Something I'll need to remember the next time I want to back any KS; will I still be interested 18+ months later?

**frankelee**

Ghaz wrote:
If the particular model isn't being used for what you're packing at the time, then it shouldn't be in the packing area. This would have been an error on someone who was a supervisor or above IMHO.

I don't know how they do it, but if I were to design a system tomorrow to do a shipping job like this, I would have runners going out into the warehouse, filling a cart with a specific item, bringing that item back to a staging table next to the packing table. Then I would have my order packers grab/fill a cart with what they need from the staging table and take it back a short distance to the packing table, put it in the box. It wouldn't surprise me if the salvage boxes are not randomized on the pallets, so Catalyst just instructs them to be aware you need to mix them at the picking stage. And to some degree they do that, maybe by making ten stacks of salvage boxes off ten different pallets in the staging area, and then the packer grabs a handful here, grabs a handful there. Hence four of my 20 salvage boxes were from the Clan Fire Star, five were from the Mercenaries box, and three were Maxim Hover Tanks. Just how I'd imagine it can happen.

**Flinty**

Ghaz wrote:
Sabotage! wrote:
The problem may be bigger than Catalyst originally thought.

It's also possible that the problem is limited to one or more production runs of Salvage Boxes and those happened to be the first chosen to be used for fulfillment. Really, we'd have to wait and see how widespread the problem is and if anyone outside of the US and Canada are affected.

Unless Liya are lying, then They should know almost exactly how many were made (within reasons, allowing for wastage etc), because they made/bought in specific single- vehicle inserts.

**Ghaz**

frankelee wrote:
Ghaz wrote:
If the particular model isn't being used for what you're packing at the time, then it shouldn't be in the packing area. This would have been an error on someone who was a supervisor or above IMHO.

I don't know how they do it, but if I were to design a system tomorrow to do a shipping job like this, I would have runners going out into the warehouse, filling a cart with a specific item, bringing that item back to a staging table next to the packing table. Then I would have my order packers grab/fill a cart with what they need from the staging table and take it back a short distance to the packing table, put it in the box. It wouldn't surprise me if the salvage boxes are not randomized on the pallets, so Catalyst just instructs them to be aware you need to mix them at the picking stage. And to some degree they do that, maybe by making ten stacks of salvage boxes off ten different pallets in the staging area, and then the packer grabs a handful here, grabs a handful there. Hence four of my 20 salvage boxes were from the Clan Fire Star, five were from the Mercenaries box, and three were Maxim Hover Tanks. Just how I'd imagine it can happen.

We know how Liya makes their Salvage Boxes from their YouTube channel

Someone would have to set up the packing area for the shift, and the supervisor/lead should be checking that it's correct as that is their job.

Flinty wrote:
Ghaz wrote:
Sabotage! wrote:
The problem may be bigger than Catalyst originally thought.

It's also possible that the problem is limited to one or more production runs of Salvage Boxes and those happened to be the first chosen to be used for fulfillment. Really, we'd have to wait and see how widespread the problem is and if anyone outside of the US and Canada are affected.

Unless Liya are lying, then They should know almost exactly how many were made (within reasons, allowing for wastage etc), because they made/bought in specific single- vehicle inserts.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, then they do know how many they've made and Catalyst has even told us in the most recent update:

Catalyst Games wrote:Loren and Randall have been meeting with Liya, our manufcaturer in China, to identify how the error occured and how widespread it is. Then they had more meetings with Liya and our fullfilment agent QML to determine how to fix it, together. Out of the 300,000 Salvage Boxes manufactured 6,008 have vehicles. Liya has been onboard from the first call to help make things right – as such, they have committed to comping an extra Salvage Box to every order going out to keep shipping from stalling.

The only thing I'm not sure of is if they use one double insert or two single inserts in the Vehicle Salvage Boxes (the Long Tom and carriage is almost definitely a double insert) as I did not get any of those boxes.

**frankelee**

Haha, I just meant at QML where the picking and packing gets done.

And them not having an accurate count wouldn't mean they were lying. People will just have to take my word on this, but sometimes mistakes happen. If you're a customer of Catalyst you haven't experienced it, but other companies it has happened.

But like I said before, it probably just came off the same pallet of salvage boxes.

**Ghaz**

frankelee wrote:
Haha, I just meant at QML where the picking and packing gets done.

Since I worked in a distribution center back in the 2000's, I can tell you that they're most likely using something like this:

**Altruizine**

frankelee wrote:
I just got my shipment in. I was one of the people who got an email on July 2nd to confirm your address by the 5th. I did not get the additional bonus salvage pack, but I did end up with three accidental tanks.

Did you get Maxims and Galleons?

Sabotage!, what about your pal?

I'm still wondering whether it's just the box set vehicles that accidentally got included. My pull was a Galleon.

Regarding the packing and picking discussion, don't Salvage Packs go to retailers in larger boxes/counter displays of ~9x or ~12x packs?

I suppose I could envision CGL/Liya having made the decision to just pack *all* the Salvage Packs that way, then shipping those to QML, who unseal them and pick individual packs out for orders, even though it wastes a bunch of cardboard.

Either way, it's interesting to speculate about *who* actually does the randomization for the random Salvage Packs in a KS. Does Liya randomize batches into boxes which QML unboxes and divvies out? Or does Liya pack boxes full of the same unit which QML unpacks into different hoppers that pickers are supposed to randomly select from (or one big hopper that is a mix of handfuls from different boxes)?

**frankelee**

Ghaz wrote:Since I worked in a distribution center back in the 2000's, I can tell you that they're most likely using something like this:

That would make sense. Though now I do kind of hope they figured out my two step process, packing like in the video makes tremendous sense when you have a big warehouse full of different items and different orders, but would be quite inefficient when you have a big warehouse full of a relatively small number of items. A sub-staging area for the packers would allows things to go way faster. Then again, maybe that's why Kickstarters take so long to finish shipping.

Altruizine wrote:
frankelee wrote:
I just got my shipment in. I was one of the people who got an email on July 2nd to confirm your address by the 5th. I did not get the additional bonus salvage pack, but I did end up with three accidental tanks.

Did you get Maxims and Galleons?

Sabotage!, what about your pal?

I'm still wondering whether it's just the box set vehicles that accidentally got included. My pull was a Galleon.

Regarding the packing and picking discussion, don't Salvage Packs go to retailers in larger boxes/counter displays of ~9x or ~12x packs?

I suppose I could envision CGL/Liya having made the decision to just pack *all* the Salvage Packs that way, then shipping those to QML, who unseal them and pick individual packs out for orders, even though it wastes a bunch of cardboard.

Either way, it's interesting to speculate about *who* actually does the randomization for the random Salvage Packs in a KS. Does Liya randomize batches into boxes which QML unboxes and divvies out? Or does Liya pack boxes full of the same unit which QML unpacks into different hoppers that pickers are supposed to randomly select from (or one big hopper that is a mix of handfuls from different boxes)?

I got 3 Maxims. Would not surprise me if the tanks from the Mercenaries box were the only ones in the salvage packs, because they confused instructions to put the Mech models from the Mercenaries box in this type of salvage pack, but missed the part about not including the tanks, and of course they're all little robot models to them so they wouldn't think twice about it after the mistake was made.

The salvage displays hold 9 boxes, and if you bought one within a year or so after they came out you would have discovered they were not random. I bought one and got a Clan Heavy Star and an Inner Sphere Fire Lance. Some people on Reddit were logging all 9-10 pairing varieties of display box you could get. Subsequently I bought one and it was actually randomized. If I had to guess Liya didn't change the way they made the the salvage packs, they just added a step where they didn't load them into display boxes directly, but instead allowed a wider mix to go into any one display box.

But I don't know that they would go to the trouble of randomization or display boxes for product that doesn't need it. Don't know, but don't know why they would. It would be easier just to stack hundreds of little boxes in a giant square, wrap it with plastic, and send to Orlando for them to deal with. If you need extras then you can bust into the properly display packed ones.

**Altruizine**

Bit off-topic, but seems worth asking here:

I'm considering doing something to keep all the potentially-loose parts on the models from this KS (ie. vehicle turrets, stuff that plugs loosely into its base like the Savannah Masters or flight stands, etc.) stable and accounted for. Don't want to lose a main gun during drunken Alpha Strike lol.

But I also don't want to permanently commit with something like superglue. Need to keep my options open when painting & basing in the (distant) future.

Would PVA glue be good for a temporary-but-indefinite hold? It should remain water soluble, but I'm not sure if water would actually penetrate all the way into a PVA'ed turret socket...

**Flinty**

Ghaz wrote:

Flinty wrote:
Ghaz wrote:
Sabotage! wrote:
The problem may be bigger than Catalyst originally thought.

It's also possible that the problem is limited to one or more production runs of Salvage Boxes and those happened to be the first chosen to be used for fulfillment. Really, we'd have to wait and see how widespread the problem is and if anyone outside of the US and Canada are affected.

Unless Liya are lying, then They should know almost exactly how many were made (within reasons, allowing for wastage etc), because they made/bought in specific single- vehicle inserts.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, then they do know how many they've made and Catalyst has even told us in the most recent update:

Catalyst Games wrote:Loren and Randall have been meeting with Liya, our manufcaturer in China, to identify how the error occured and how widespread it is. Then they had more meetings with Liya and our fullfilment agent QML to determine how to fix it, together. Out of the 300,000 Salvage Boxes manufactured 6,008 have vehicles. Liya has been onboard from the first call to help make things right – as such, they have committed to comping an extra Salvage Box to every order going out to keep shipping from stalling.

The only thing I'm not sure of is if they use one double insert or two single inserts in the Vehicle Salvage Boxes (the Long Tom and carriage is almost definitely a double insert) as I did not get any of those boxes.

There are some comments implying that there might be many more of the mistaken single vee salvage boxes. I think it’s unlikely, unless there is skullduggery going on.