Hey there backers,

Popping in after getting some news from QML today to keep you posted. EU fulfillment is expected to start on February 10th!

Hey backers!

Just got another update from QML. Australian address verifications have begun, and orders should start shipping early next week!

Have a great weekend!

Lorcan Nagle wrote:Episode 42



4th February 2025
Guest: Brent Evans, CGL art director

News
-BattleTech new releases (Kickstarter products US-only for now)
--February 5th
---Map Pack: Savannah
---Inner Sphere Recon Lance
---Clan Cavalry Star
---Battlefield Support Battle and Fire Lances
---Battlemat Urban: HPG Heliport
--February 19th
---Inner Sphere Security Lance
---Davion Heavy Battle Lance
---Sun-Tzu's Art of War translated by Jamie Wolf
-Loren has been issuing challenges to the directors over the last while. The January challenge was to play BattleTech, Shadowrun, or a CGL board game. Rem decided to level up and play all three with the community. The February challenge was to read a short story, a novella and a novel from a CGL property and Rem is levelling up as well. Tomorrow (February 4th), she’ll be doing a live-read of Leviathans: A Monster In The Sky by Stephen Mohan on the CGL YouTube, then a BattleTech story next week and something Shadowrun after that.
-Next week’s guest is probably Michael Stackpole


Discussion
-Brent is stepping down as art director of CGL!
-As CGl has grown he had to train in Ian King and Marco Mazzoni as shadowrun and BattleTech art directors while Brent took over a more general position
-Brian Weissman, of Magic the Gathering and Grinding Gear games headhunted Brent for a new computer game startup.
-A new art director will take over for board games general RPGs and tabletop games, with Ian and Marco retaining their roles
-Brent described his job as largely finding talented fans, getting them up to speed with how CGL do things and getting them work.
-Brent talked about how he worked hard to convince CGL to go to full colour, trying to do more full-figure character portraits, incorporating 3D assets. He described it as playing Blackjack and somehow winning all the time.
-It’ll be a good while before all the products Brent worked on will be out of the pipeline, and he’s looking forward to when CGL do some promotional reveals for products he’s not going to be aware of due to production being anywhere from 6-18 months ahead of what the public sees.
-Brent’s been working in illustration for a long time, and it’s very much been more about what engages him as opposed to money in more recent years. He talked about how he could be asked to illustrate a chair, but regardless of how much effort he’d be asked to put in he’d be bored to death. People have tried to recruit him over the years, but nothing was as exciting to him as BattleTech and Shadowrun. But Brian Weissman’s project really got him and he really wants to bring it to life
-Loren and Randall’s reaction was to congratulate him and be excited for him.
-He worked out a plan on how to replace him and keep CGLs creative processes on track. As part of that, he’s going to continue to do some work for CGL as an advisor, and continue to direct the current mapsheet team.
-He’s considered submitting illustrations for CGL again
-Brent was asked what he was most proud of, and he talked a lot about stuff that excited him, including the Shadowrun 5th edition cover and the Elven Blood cover. For BattleTech he talked about how he’d been asked to crank out images on a tight deadline and they didn’t need a lot of detail, only to walk into Gencon and see them on big banners and go nooooooo. So he loves the level of detail they get into the current work and how great they look blown up on big banners. The six-panel-wide Eridani Light Horse art is a major example. They had to get a special exemption to hang the banner of that at GenCon because it created fire safety issues because of how it affected the airflow, and that was after they cut 15 feet off it. The artist who made the map of Seattle for Shadowrun recently went to amazing detail similarly to the point of doing wireframes of all the buildings. When he realised all the detail, Brent doubled the artist’s rate and told him to go wild.
Brent loves the dedication of the fans, he talked about a guy who was deployed to the Middle East, took a 4-day pass to get to Gencon just to play in Masters and Minions. He was only at the con for about 6 hours, the rest of the time was getting to and from. He also remembered a chunk of the German fans who came over from GenCon and had a chat where they came away feeling he was doing right by BattleTech.

Q&A
-What are Brent’s favourite moments of success in his time in CGL? He remembers the time he was art director and lead developer of BattleTech and they were written into a corner and he worked hard to get through that to get them to a point where the sky was the limit.
-When will the Mercs box be released to retail in the UK? Stores who backed at Company Store will have it in stock. It won’t be on general release until after EU fulfillment is done.
-Will the Fanroll dice be available outside of the Kickstarter? Not to general retail, but they should be on the webstore. Rem is looking to get a release schedule for webstore stuff like they have for retail.
-BattleTech carry case is showing as out of stock/coming soon for Canadian stores and distributors. Rem has now sent this up the chain.
-Status on the next print run of Hot Spots: Hinterlands, will it incorporate errata? It’s shipping now, might not be on a boat yet. It’s an identical reprint, there was no time to do errata. They ordered what they thought would last 18 months and it sold out in a week.
-Any update on what will happen if you get a Mech salvage box with a vehicle in it at retail? Still no decision made, some people are still out of communication since last week.
-Any updates on MUL 2? Not since Josh was on.
-What is Brent’s favourite piece of art that someone else created? He got into BattleTech via MechWarrior 3 and he’s loved the Bushwacker ever since. Germán Varona Galindo, an artist based out of Colombia who somehow got a copy of the rules as a kid, made his own hex maps and carved mechs out of wood to play with, did a Bushwacker piece as his test, that was used as the cover of Shrapnel 13 and he loves it.
-Favourite ’Mech redesign? Probably the Sentinel

Lorcan Nagle wrote:Episode 43



11th February 2025
Guest: Michael A Stackpole. Who literally needs no introduction

News
-New releases
--BattleTech
---Out now
----Map Pack: Savannah
----Inner Sphere Recon Lance
----Clan Cavalry Star
----Battlefield Support Battle and Fire Lances
----Battlemat Urban: HPG Heliport
---Feb 19th
----Inner Sphere security Lance
----Davion Heavy Lance
----The Art of War translated by Jaime Wolf
-CGL will be at GAMA at the end of February. Rem will be on a panel
-There will likely be no episode on the 25th as Rem will be at GAMA

Discussion
-Mike’s most recent fiction release is Heir Apparent, the first of four long novellas he wrote for Harebrained Schemes as Kickstarter rewards for their BattleTech computer game.
-A dozen people bought the rights to be included as characters and he spent about an hour with each of the backers to find out what they’d like to see. He asked if they were OK with dying and some were, some less so.
-The story begins in the Aurigan Reach, then ventures into the Inner Sphere and back out.
It’s set in and around 3005, which was the earliest set BattleTech work he’s done. He includes Quintus Allard as a younger man, alludes to his sons Dan and Justin as in it.
-The cover art is new, but it hews close to HBS’s art for their edition
-The series is likely to be released one per quarter
-In terms of his own books, Mike recommends the Warrior or Blood of Kerensky Trilogy, depending on which era sounds more interesting.
-His favourite book that probably isn’t newbie-friendly is Assumption of Risk, and how it concludes some arcs set up in Blood of Kerensky.
-Why write for BattleTech? He started in the gaming industry and knew the FASA guys well enough to chat to, and when they started publishing fiction he offered his services as an author while chatting at Origins. They were a bit skeptical but he sent a sample and they liked it and gave him a shot. Because it was his start as a novelist he’ll always make time for BattleTech.
-As a game designer, he noted his work on the Wasteland and Bard’s Tale 3, some Star Trek games Interplay brought out, Neuromancer. Tabletop-wise he mentioned Tunnels and Trolls, the Renegade Legion RPG, other work for FASA, TSR and many others.
-He got into Star Wars because he had a two-book deal with Bantam for some fantasy novels. They had a license with Lucasfilm for some Star Wars novels, but Lucas wouldn’t sell them any more books, but offered them an X-wing license. They asked him what he thought of doing a game tie-in series because he worked in computer games, and he was skeptical until they said it was a Star Wars game. He was tapped to write the books because he was fast, reliable and could do military SF.
-Around the time he signed the deal, he was out at dinner with a friend and they were discussing how daunting it was. And a kid at the next table overheard them, came over and put a piece of paper in front of him, saying “I don’t know who you are, but if you’re involved in Star Wars I’d like your autograph”
-For working in established properties, his favourites are BattleTech and Star Wars, but he loves writing licensed work overall because he enjoys playing in those worlds.
-He listed out a lot of the different properties he’s worked on, as well as his own series. He’s published about 70 books so far.
-For Shadowrun, he writes the Wolf and Raven stories. He learned about Shadowrun in the same meeting he learned about Renegade Legion and was tapped to design the RPG. He wrote the first Wolf and Raven story in a day and handed it to Jordan who passed it on to the design team.
-He’s got new Wolf and Raven stories in Augment and in a recent anthology.

Q&A
-Any stories from Wasteland? It’s a classic CRPG. Neither he nor the programmer had approached a game like this and they didn’t know what they could do. They spent a lot of time on the phone figuring out what could happen as a result of decisions and choices. Like if they put in a locked door they’d keep adding ways that it could be opened, like picking it, finding the key, blowing it up and so on.
-What was his favourite character to write/character he’d most like to write? Quarrel Hamilton from the Death Kangaroos right now. Victor and Kai back in the day.
-What is the one thing he’s most proud of adding to BattleTech? At the risk of sounding egotistical there’s so much he’s added he can’t pick one thing. He never expected the Kell Hounds to get so big and popular.
-What’s his favourite part of the Kell Hounds? That they’re still going strong, and everything Morgan Kell went through and his character development.
-Will the Art of War be available at retail? Yes
-Will the novellas be a single PoD volume or separate? Probably a compilation.
-Any word of Mercs EU shipment? Shipping was due to start today, they’re waiting for confirmation form QML. There will be a backer update today
-When will we get the full Alaric book that was teased? (meaning the Hungry like the Wolf April Fool’s day joke): You just gotta make it worth his time
-Who are his favourite authors? He name dropped Roger Zelazny, Fred Saberhagen, Dennis McKiernan, Mick Heron, Stephen King. He loves writers who’s work inspires him to do more.
-What were the reasonings behind making the Wolves the protagonist Clan? At the time the Clans were just names, most of which he came up with, and he had an affinity towards Wolves. It’s easy to look back at the setting now and saying this was the plan, but it just developed organically. If it was another author it might have been the Falcons or Bears or whatever Clan they liked the sound of.
-What About Den of Wolves? Mike is waiting on copy from Loren so he can finish doing his part. Loren is, of course very busy so Mike has not been pushing as hard as he might.
-What cons will Mike be attending? Adepticon, A small show in Phoenix on February 27th, Soonercon in Oklahoma and FanFusion in Phoenix in June, GenCon and Dragoncon
-Is there a BattleTech subject he wants to write about? More Death Kangaroos! He’s in a unique position where if he wants to do a story John will find a slot for him, he’s got a lot of assignments stacked up so he’s more likely to build something into one of those.
-Why do some clans have two word names, but the Wolves and a couple of others one word? In a lot of cases an animal-only name didn’t quite work, like Falcons on its own is meh, but Jade Falcons works better.
-How much of the X-wing games did Mike play before writing the novels? All of it. He even had a pre-release copy of TIE Fighter, and burned through at least three joysticks playing them to death.
-Can you bring back Clan Wolverine as ilClan? They are dead, they are dead, they are dead, they are dead.

Lorcan Nagle wrote:Episode 44



11th February 2025
Guests: Christina York, author of Hungry Like The Wolf and Jennifer Brozek, editor on the novel.

News:
-New releases
--19th February
---Battletech (Kickstarter items US-only)
----Inner Sphere Security Lance
----Sun-Tsu’s Art of War
----House Davion Heavy Battle Lance
---Hungry like the Wolf came out on Valentine’s Day, surprise!
---March
----Shadowrun: Deadly Arts
---Augment came out last week
-A BattleTech Kickstarter update will be out later today
-Shadowrun: Takedown is still in manufacturing
-Leviathans
--Still on the boat to the US
--Randall just got about 50 boxes of production samples, so expect photos soon
-Runefire is still moving forward
-Frostpunk is launching in a month, launching the same day as 11-bit’s fiction and art anthology. Each kickstarter has an early bird award to enhance the other one
-Voltron pledge manager is being tested right now.
-Fanroll, who make a lot of CGL swag have just launched their Luxury Catan upgrades kickstarter. It funded in an hour!
-Next week is GAMA, so no Tuesday Newsday.


Discussion:
-Hungry Like the Wolf started as a poll on big Red 40-tech’s youTube where his fans voted to have art of Alaric Ward shirtless commissioned, and it ballooned from there
-Loren approached Christina and asked her if she wanted to write a romance novel with giant battling robots, and she couldn’t stop laughing long enough to say no
-John Helfers, in a quest to make Jennifer’s life more complex came to her to edit the book because she’s edited traditional romance stories before. She insisted that she’d edit it on some caveats like it had to hew to traditional romance tropes, and it couldn’t be a tragedy
-Why? Why not? Because there’s interest, because it might introduce people outside the milSF sphere to BattleTech, because the BattleTech fans are well-rounded and want to experience more of the universe.
-While it sounds like a joke, this is an actual BattleTech book. It wouldn’t stand without the ilClan’s conflict with the Terrans and ’Mech battles.
-The core characters were likened to Romeo and Juliet in that they’re from warring cultures, and that’s vital to the story
-Bryan Young assisted with the combat scenes as Christina didn’t know the universe well enough to do them justice.
-This is a story of leaders coming together to make the situation better for both sides
-The story is a serious relationship with a Spheroid woman, which is way outside Alaric’s sphere of influence, with different expectations on what comes out of the relationship. Things like the concept of commitment and the family unit are very alien to Alaric and that’s important.
-Christina’s first professional short story was sold to the first Star Trek: Strange New Worlds anthology in 97/98. She’s written in a lot of different worlds, for example she heard about a call-out for Alias fiction without having seen any of the show, she put her name forward and when they asked her to put in a proposal she dashed out to rent all the episodes she could to do a proposal, it was accepted and she got to write two novels in the end
-Christina’s husband Steven wrote a couple of mechWarrior novels so they had some research material, and John sent on a stack of novels with crib notes to mark where Alaric was in them
-Christina has a long history of writing romance novels and short fiction. She’s been working on a series of cosy mystery novels called the Haunted Souvenir Shop. Originally published by Berkley, she’s been reissuing them herself in anthologies. Set in North Florida, the lead character indeed owns a haunted souvenir shop, and a parrot who’s the shop’s ghost’s spokesman.
-Jennifer thinks she’s written more romance in her BattleTech and Shadowrun fiction than in her other stories. She said when Jason Schemtzer approached her to write BattleTech she said “I don’t write ’Mechs and I don’t write romance”, and that hasn’t lasted.
-Jennifer’s had very good feedback on her BattleTech romance arcs, but she noted that she got a lot of criticism for the opening chapter of Makeda Red being on a party train, someone said it was “like literotica”
-Some people have said that Hungry Like the Wolf has made Alaric more likeable to them
-Will there be more BattleTech romance? If the market supports it. At least one author has approached Jennifer about it and Christina is down for more.
-Jennifer talked about how nobody wanted to be the butt of the joke, and even though the book started as an April Fool’s joke they wanted this to be a serious take on the subject so it wouldn’t just be making fun of BattleTech or Romance.
-Christina noted that the idea seemed hysterical, she couldn’t just laugh it off and throw something together. She knew she had to treat the setting with respect
-Jennifer mentioned a review of a D&D book called Kinks and Cantrips she’d just watched, and how it’s a really good book that adds a lot to the world while being outside the usual RPG wheelhouse.
-Jennifer called out that there are no consent issues in the book.

Q&A
-When is the physical copy out? It’s on Amazon PoD now.
-When will the BattleTech 40th Anniversary hoodie restock? Unsure, Rem has asked Talon for an update
-When will the restock for Hinterlands be in stock? They’re still on the boat, the looming tariffs mean that a lot of material has been shipped and that has led to delays.
-Any ETA for Alpha Strike Commander’s edition? Most of the core books are either still at QML pending the end of Kickstarter fulfillment or are already on the way back to PSI
-Any update on the 3rd Star League strike team release? Tentatively down for June 15th
-When is the estimated date for Leviathans fulfillment? It may well be in the jam. They’re still hoping to begin fulfillment in March but it all depends on arrival in the warehouse.
-For those due a salvage box, will there be a tracking number? Rem’s not 100% sure, PSI usually sends out a tracking number. The order has been submitted to PSI, who came back saying they need approval to break apart some POS displays to get enough salvage boxes for everyone
-Is there some sort of delay on non-Kickstarter shipping? Some US distributors show the 3rd Star League forcepack as coming out in June, but Amazon says May. PSI is meant to set release dates but there are a number of issues with distribution right now, from the aforementioned shipping traffic jam, Alliance's financial issues and so on, so a lot of things are in flux
-Can we get an estimate on the quantity and quality of the bodices ripped? No bodices are ripped, but there is a fall and catch and it does get hot in the cockpit… They do have to fade to black though
-Is Hungry Like the Wolf included in the Big Kappa 2-years of stuff? Yes
-Will the Mercs record sheets be put up online? They’ll be included in MUL 2
-When will Steven York write another BattleTech novel? Or Christina? She’d love to write another one but hasn’t been asked. And for anyone who remembers Steven’s books: Thank you!
-Now that we’ve had romance, can we expect other genre crossover like Westerns or horror? There’s been a bit, like one of Loren’s novels (probably Double Blind) had horseback soldiers, there’s some genre crossover in the Legacy Anthology, and always potential for more.

Anthony Scroggins wrote:Here you can see the gantry in the deployed position. If all goes well that will hinge up and down, along with the side doors of the gantry also moving (just not the little 4 end sections). I'm looking forward to (or dreading) to see how this one goes in product and how far we can push our vee sculpts, and the possibilities of miniatures articulation.

Update #124 wrote:Hey there Backers!

Here’s the update for this week:

US/CAN/RoW w/o hubs: Wave 3 is complete. They are doing some shipments to replace missing products/packages or damages. We have their inventory report of shortages they need us to fulfill. QML and CGL are currently coordinating to ship remaining inventory to us and we can begin Wave 4.

UK: Wave 3 is complete, except for a few shortages. We’ll be air-shipping those as soon as we’ve reviewed their shortage list (expected this week). Exclusivity has ended, though we will still wait on street dates for all of Europe until EU fulfillment is complete and their exclusivity period ends.


EU: Wave 1 and 2 are about 48% complete. It will start to slow down as they take their time with larger orders to ensure accuracy.


AUS: About 43% complete.


Asia: Wave 3 is complete and awaiting pickup.



Other Updates: Some of these projects haven’t changed, so the update is the same from last week and copied here. Some of them have taken the next step forward, so double check the details.

Missing Items: For US/CAN and RoW without Hubs. As QML wraps up remaining shipping, they’ve identified additional items that are short. We’ve asked QML to fulfill what they have, then send us a list of what’s owed for each order. We will fulfill these items from our own warehouse once QML is complete and has the full list. In the meantime, you should still reach out to QML in case an actual mistake may have been made. If they respond that any missing items are due to inventory levels, then you know that you are on the list for us to fulfill.


Retailer Shipping Compensation:

During the Kickstarter, we promised to offset shipping with merchandise. Because of the shortages, we stalled to ensure individual backer orders could fill first. We have a plan to fulfill, which leads to a very special announcement made right here first!

We are launching a new website and online store within the next month or so.

Functionality is in final review and approvals, bug fixes are being worked on, and imagery is being updated. More information will be released as we get closer to launch.

The new site will finally allow for Direct-to-Retail purchases! So once we launch, we will be uploading your retail pledge shipping costs as credits to the webstore so you can order whatever you like! We’ll keep you posted as we get closer.

Vehicles in Salvage Boxes:

Update: If you get a vehicle in your Mercenaries Salvage Box from your FLGS, return it to the store for a replacement and the store can report to us for a replacement.

Early on in shipping, our wonderful backers brought to our attention that some of the Mercenaries Salvage Boxes came with Vehicles instead of ‘Mechs, which was a production error. We instructed QML to send 1 extra Salvage Box to all backers. Anyone who was already sent that hadn’t yet received Art of War or the Cookbook would be receiving their extra Salvage Box with those shipments. All known reships have been completed. Please report anything new to tbuckner@catalystgamelabs.com, store@catalystgamelabs.com or Kickstarter messages. If you have questions, please include “Mercenaries - Salvage Box Vehicle” in your title line to help expedite this process.

Overage Credits in Backerkit:
Some of you still have outstanding credit in Backerkit. We’ve run a report, and a lot of the people with credits still haven’t completed their surveys or paid shipping. Tyler has been working on these and has been able to get most of the legitimate credits refunded. Please note that if you paid with Paypal, we will need your paypal email to be able to issue the refund. Please email tbuckner@catalystgamelabs.com if you have gotten your shipment and still have outstanding credit in Backerkit. Please include “Mercenaries - Store Credit” in your title line to help expedite this process.


Reminders:

Store Credits

If you requested store credit to offset some of your shipping fees, our list has now been fully processed. Check your Catalyst Store account at store.catalystgamelabs.com to double check your credit. If you believe you’ve been missed, please email store@catalystgamelabs.com.

Damaged Items

If your items were damaged in transit, please contact QML directly as they will be handling the replacements at the end of fulfillment. Here is the link: https://www.qmlogistics.com/contactUs.html

Defective Items

If an item in your shipment was defective in some way, such as a manufacturing error, please contact us at tbuckner@catalystgamelabs.com and include a photo of the defective product in your first email. We will be replacing these once we have all inventory back from QML.

Retail Street Dates: We have continued to receive occasional reports regarding retailers in unfulfilled regions releasing Kickstarter products prior to established street-dates. As these cases are identified, we are taking appropriate action as necessary.

Wave 1: Orders finalized and shipping paid on or before May 17th, 2024

Wave 2: Orders finalized and shipping paid between May 17th, 2024 and August 12th, 2024

Wave 3: Orders finalized and shipping paid between August 12th, 2024 and October 22nd 2024

Wave 4: Orders finalized and shipping paid between October 22nd, 2024 or later

Catalyst Game Labs wrote:Like many of you, the Catalyst Game Labs team has been watching recent economic developments. We have been hard at work developing strategies that would make our position more resilient to the rapidly changing world trade dynamics that we have been seeing.

Like much of the tabletop gaming industry, Catalyst gets hit especially hard by trade tariffs. Our industry is inherently international in nature. We are lucky that we have been able to be flexible with pricing in the past decade. However recent changes with the market have shown us that our flexibility was not quite prepared for a change of this magnitude.

With the current level of economic uncertainty, we have to make some tough decisions. In the next 60 days we will be releasing a comprehensive update for this process, including some unfortunately necessary price adjustments. These price adjustments will be applied to new products and product reprints that are directly affected by tariffs. As we adjust to this new situation, we will likely expand this policy across our entire product line in order to average out increases. We are working hard to ensure that we can keep or even improve our value contribution to you and your game tables. We have prided ourselves on maintaining our relationship with you and your local game stores throughout Catalyst Game Labs’ history and we will hope to continue that trend in the years to come.

The CGL team would like to thank you for sticking with us as we all work through this uncertain future together. We are happy to share our games with all of you and want to see our community grow through a shared love of the IPs and games we steward.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Tabletop gaming operates on incredibly narrow profit margins, the industry will be very highly affected by the tariffs. The "incredible markups" are there because its one of the last remaining industries that (mostly by necessity of how niche it is) still requires third party distributors to act as a middle-men between publishers and retailers.

 TalonZahn wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Tabletop gaming operates on incredibly narrow profit margins, the industry will be very highly affected by the tariffs. The "incredible markups" are there because its one of the last remaining industries that (mostly by necessity of how niche it is) still requires third party distributors to act as a middle-men between publishers and retailers.

Wholesale to Retail markup is, on average, 43% to 47% in the tabletop gaming industry. That's not "incredibly narrow" at all.

It also doesn't require "third party distributors" or companies wouldn't be selling Direct or Direct Only in the case of GW.

In that case the Publisher essentially gets their money twice, once from Publisher to Wholesale and Wholesale to Retail.

Now if you are talking about Walmart, then yes, you have a case as they rely on number of sales so they run 1%-5% over wholesale.

 TalonZahn wrote:
You can buy almost every major game out there directly from the Publisher; Infinity, Mantic, Bolt Action, MCP, anything Star Wars, CMON, Para Bellum, Battlefront, etc...

Direct from Publisher is not some rare GW case..

 TalonZahn wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Tabletop gaming operates on incredibly narrow profit margins, the industry will be very highly affected by the tariffs. The "incredible markups" are there because its one of the last remaining industries that (mostly by necessity of how niche it is) still requires third party distributors to act as a middle-men between publishers and retailers.

Wholesale to Retail markup is, on average, 43% to 47% in the tabletop gaming industry. That's not "incredibly narrow" at all.

It also doesn't require "third party distributors" or companies wouldn't be selling Direct or Direct Only in the case of GW.

In that case the Publisher essentially gets their money twice, once from Publisher to Wholesale and Wholesale to Retail.

You can buy almost every major game out there directly from the Publisher; Infinity, Mantic, Bolt Action, MCP, anything Star Wars, CMON, Para Bellum, Battlefront, etc...

The internet can carry everything at a discount and an FLGS cannot.

 TalonZahn wrote:
Most FLGS are 1 man, or 2-3, man stores that are staffed by the owners. Most of those are also in strip malls, not high rent top tier locations.

Mantic, Warlord, Para Bellum, Corvus Belli, Battlefront, CMON, etc. all do it and aren't one of your Big Two.

Lorcan Nagle wrote:Episode 45



11th March 2025
Guests: Jason Hardy, RPG division director and RJ Thomas, Shadowrun line developer

News
-New releases
--BattleTech
---March 5th
----Battlefield Support: Assault and Cavalry Lances
----Inner Sphere BattleArmour Platoon
---March 14th
----Shrapnel 20
---March 19th
----Map Pack: City
----Somerset Strikers
----House Davion Cavalry Lance
----Battlemat City HPG Engineering
----Salvage Box: Visigoth
----Legends II might also be out, Rem needs to double check
-Lots of releases to come in April
-Tentative launch date for new website is March 18th


Q&A
-Will Hungry Like the Wolf get a physical edition? It’s available now on PoD
-Will Dice Core be used for any new BattleTech RPG? That’s up to Ray
-Any update on a 40th anniversary Hoodie restock? Unsure if there will be one, email store@catalystgamelabs.com to let them know if you want it
-Any word on restock on Hot Spots: Hinterlands? Unsure. The boat with Flippin Ninja and Parachute Panda is due to arrive in 2 days, but Leviathans is stuck in the congestion of ships trying to leave China before tariffs hit. “A lot of BattleTech” is apparently on the water still.
-Any ETA for restock of Alpha Strike: Commander’s Edition? Any left over stock from QML will be returned to CGL’s warehouse, failing that a reprint is on the water.
-Any word on CGL-sponsored events at LVO? Not yet, GenCon events are a higher priority right now. They’re trying to get the word out over the newsletter, like the most recent one listed Adepticon events.
-Will there be a book signing for Hungry Like the Wolf at Adepticon? Not sure, but Big Red will be there and this came out of a joke in his community...
-Will the website relaunch include the new MUL? It’s just the website, the MULis hopefully close to relaunch too though.
-If we’re waiting on a salvage box, will we get shipping notification? Unsure. Stock of individual boxes ran short, so they had to authorise breaking up of the display units of 9 boxes, and that’s lagging behind.
-Is there some delay in non-Kickstarter items being released, for example Second Star League is listed as a May release in some distributors? There’s a lot of confusion around street dates right now, like some people aren’t being notified before the date, and distributors are going some things (Alliance for instance), so delays are happening.
-The BattleTech 40th Anniversary Mug is not visible on the webstore? It’s out of stock.

BrianDavion wrote:So here's some news I grabbed from discord
-TRO3025 Reprint - 1000 Year Anniversary Edition
Reprint of the original but with modern art.
3125-era appendix from the Republic discussing the oddities/factual issues of the original.
New art for Mechs, vehicles, ASF, DropShips, and LAMs.
Poster Map Set of the Inner Sphere throughout the timeline.
This is pulled from the Universe book with some changes.
-Force Manuals
Mercenaries is in print.
Invading Clans is next.
-Hesperus Box Set
Goes over the history of the Hesperus battles.
Should include minis (not confirmed).
-New BattleTech RPG
In development.
Bridges Destiny and AToW.
Will interface with both and other upcoming products.
-Celestial Force Pack
Pushed to 2026 by Aces.
-Interstellar Players for ilClan era
-Super Secret Thing
To be announced at Adepticon.