Lorcan Nagle wrote:Discussion with John Helfers and Bryan Young
Hungry Like the Wolf has sold out
Bryan’s first exposure to BattleTech was an uncle who was only a few years older than him brought over a lot of RPG books which included some early BattleTech books including the original Shrapnel anthology
His first major exposure was the SNES MechWarrior game, then the PC games
He never really got into the tabletop version of BattleTech, but Shadowrun was his main FASA game. BattleTech was around but it wasn’t the game he played
When he was doing a lot of original and licensed work as a writer, was a friend of Mike Stackpole and ended up doing a lot of cons where he and CGL were and Stackpole introduced them.
He got to befriend the CGL editors and pitched writing some Shadowrun fiction. John said they had no Shadowrun slots right then, but how about BattleTech?
He asked Mike Stackpole for advice on where to start reading, who half-jokingly replied “just the stuff I wrote”. He started with BLood of Kerensky, found it a bit hard to follow so he went back to the start.
He ended up pitching a lot as the focus and direction of the fiction kept changing, Hour of the Wolf was coming up, and Bryan and Stackpole were tapped to do some kind of story about Callandre Kell going through the end of the Dark Age, which would have ended with an Hour of the Wolf tie-in where Callandre would end up on Terra to kill Malvina. After a 2019 plot summit Stackpole rang him to say “the bad news is that story’s been killed, the good news is you’re on the schedule. The bad news is the book is due out in four months… How much do you know about the Jade Falcons?” that became Honour’s Gauntlet.
It was an interesting experience writing fast, it was a month and a half from outline to first draft completion. Bryan was arguing that it needed some POV chapters from the villain, but John and Phil were reluctant. Jason Schemetzer read it and said he felt it needed the villain POV without knowing about the prior discussions, and John went back to Bryan asking to add it in.
The Fox Patrol started with a few ideas in Bryan’s head: In the SNES game he hated running out of ammo and would work hard to try and keep heat neutral so he’d always take jobs on planets with water so he could stand in a lake to stay cool. So what if the mech had to be abandoned? He then ha the image of a young girl finding it later, repairing it and it becoming her mech. John and Phil said “get rid of the lake” He sees now why the lake would be an issue in the context of BattleTech though. He was waiting to hear back about it and was talking to Stackpole, who said with John it’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. So Bryan wrote the first five stories, and as soon as the first was published, he mailed Phil the second, and so on.
Outfoxed, a new Fox Patrol story picks up after Without Question. They head off to Almotacen after the battle of Sudeten. It’s about Katie coming to terms with how much she loves mechs but hasn’t really come to terms what being a merc and the consequences can be. Like she’s never come to terms with how much she could lose. She gains a rival who hates Katie and what she stands for. We haven’t seen much rivalry between merc commanders in more recent fiction so that’s going to be part of this plot.
The Ghost Dogs are Bryan’s other merc unit, a Kell Hounds offshoot. Bryan wanted to write a very different merc unit to the Fox Patrol. The Kell hounds have a family feel but are hypercompetent. Ghosts of Timkovichi, a full-length novel featuring the Dogs is coming soon with Callandre calling the Ghost Dogs back to do a mission.
VoidBreaker came out of the first creative summit Bryan went to in 2023. Bryan pitched it as a spy story and there was some discussion around it. Ray liked the idea and went to bat to do it. A novel that had been accepted was axed - the plot became Let Slip the Dogs of War, and Bryan pitched VoidBreaker and Without Question at the same time. Unlike, say Blood Avatar which has very few BattleTech elements, VoidBreaker keeps the story more grounded in BattleTech, up to having mechs and mech combat feature prominently.
Bryan worked combat vehicles into the book as well to help anchor the new plastic minis in the fiction
He’s been on a book tour and playing games on the way, and he’s gained a big love for hovertanks, especially the characterful way they can skid and sideslip.
A Question of Survival was Bryan’s first full-length BattleTech novel. He was given the era, the faction and the goal and given free rein after that. Stackpole helped him with the plot, and Ray said he felt Bryan was the best person to handle the story. There were some characters and events from Dominions Divided they wanted to include, and had a meeting via Zoom. This meeting happened to take place during DragonCon and Bryan and Ray realised they were both at the con during the call.
He felt he needed to create characters that were going to be effected the most to pull people into the events we know from the sourcebooks, and that was when he figured out he’d need four POV characters: Jiyi, a subordinate of his, the Ghost Bear commander and a sibkid. He worked hard to make all the characters sympathetic and that neither side is good or bad. Bryan discussed who’s POV some events should be seen from with CGL’s developmental editor to figure out where things should be high notes and low notes as it would depend on which event was seen in who’s eyes.
Bryan is working on a series of novellas to delve further into the Ghost Bears and the fractures that came to light as a result of the Star League vote
They talked about more falcon fiction. There will definitely be more, if nothing else we’re going to have to have Stephanie and Jiyi meet.
If Bryan was in charge, what would he do differently? He’s very deep in the current setting and he kinda sees more things he’d tweak slightly to make his stories easier to tell. He far prefers to work within what’s there.
Any plans on getting Katie out of that Kit Fox? In character Katie loves that mech. He’s read the fox stories to his kids, who in turn always want to play the Kit Fox when they play BattleTech and it’s hard to not just slaughter them. Note that Katie has gone looking for omnipods for her mech in Merry Foxmas
Will we see novels outside the ilClan and Dark Age eras? Yes, but the majority of fiction will be in the ilClan era. As well as the Wars of Reaving novels they want to flesh out the Jihad, and Jim Long is writing two novels about the Black Thorns, possibly up to their potential end
What Periphery faction would Bryan like to write? He did a story about Isolde Centrella’s march to invade the Marians in Legends II and he’d love to either continue it or have someone else continue it so he could see how it ends
What variants are each of the Fox Patrol mechs? Bryan wrote up Spotlight: Fox Patrol and he picked out variants for it. But he doesn’t have them off the top of his head.
Spotlight on: Fox Patrol should still be coming out. It was one of many projects sidelined by the Mercs Kickstarter
Bryan’s had a lot of fun writing the graphic novels. They worked out what the series should have at Gencon two years ago. The first draft of the script is in. He and Stackpole have had a lot of fun working together on it. Often one of them will figure out what needs to be in a section and the other will write it, or one will defer to the other depending on which characters are in a scene. The first issue has a number of guest artists. No timeframe for release yet. The script isn’t complete and they’re not sending it for art until that’s done. Eldon has shared some character sketches with Bryan who thinks they look great.
If these graphic novels are successful John would love to adapt some classic novels to comic format
Were there other contenders for Katie’s Mech? He wanted an Arctic Fox but Fact Check said no, use a Kit Fox instead.

Lorcan Nagle wrote:Aces playthrough with Paul from Focht’s Network, Marco Mazzoni, Big Red, Joshua Derksen, Bryan Young and Mike Stackpole

The scenario in this game was area control with objectives being in three buildings - they score points for having more SZ in proximity to three buildings.
PV balance was “very close”
Aces is controlling the Mech 7
Player group: BattleMaster (Paul), Highlander (Marco), Wolverine (Big Red), Marauder IIc (Josh) Axman (Mike), Marauder (Bryan)
The Aces Deck has decision points around moving towards and taking objectives, ensuring it can have more units around the objective and the like
Some of the decks they used in the game are from later sets than Scouring Sands

Lorcan Nagle wrote:Webstore and general updates with Loren Coleman, Talon Coleman and Michael Ciaravella
Talon’s been working on the last ten months on the webstore back-end, it went live last week
Some features like filtering are still to come
The back-end upgrade also has support for international shipping
They’re working out contracts for EU, UK and AUS warehouses.
They’ll be able to send products from manufacturing partners to the local hubs, and then people can get local shipping costs and timeframes
The process has been a lot harder than they expected
A lot of elements on the webstore were hard-coded, meaning it was harder to do quick changes and development. This has been changed out for more modules that can be updated or swapped out.
When the hubs go live we’ll see a small number of items that are well-stocked, and then moving out to more products.
Talon thanked people for feedback on the store changes like issues with viewing on mobile devices
Patches, pins, shirts, the Lostech dice, and the liquid core dice will be up on the site soon
The plan for the hubs is that once they come online all new products would go out to them from manufacturing, with older items being shipped out from the US when they can or when they reprint. New items produced in the US, like mugs may move to the hubs slowly.
There’ll be an interface for store owners to order direct form CGL if you can’t get it from distributors
They might be able to offer some items to retailers via the store that aren’t available via distributors
Will CGL do monthly AMAs again? Loren would like to
They’re going to focus on the top 100 products for the hubs to begin with
The EU warehouse is likely to be in the Netherlands
When will the final wave of the US Kickstarters go out? Loren thinks anyone who filled out their survey and paid their shipping by July 7th should have their stuff now. QML are returning stock to CGL now, who will complete fulfillment for the remaining people. Loren estimates they’ll start going out within the next 30-45 days. UK standard fulfillment is done, EU at 75%, AUS around 60%
Will the store give better info on upcoming releases? The main feature right now is the newsletter, but there’s also a news/blog section in the store where people can post updates and Talon wants to get people to use it. They’re hoping to put out a semi-regular newsletter that would give upcoming releases for six months or so.
Will Lostech dice be back on the store? As soon as they’re back in stock, yeah.
Will items that were shorted early in the Kickstarter, such as Art of War and the cookbook be going out? That’s in process, Rem’s team are working on it.
Will there be another BattleTech Kickstarter? Yes. Which and when? Don’t know. They’ll do them when they think it makes sense for a product, when they can offer things that they couldn’t do outside of a kickstarter
Will Salvage boxes be back in stock? Yes. They’re reprinting Mercs, but they might add the Blood Asp and something else into the mix. When they sell out of Savannah Master boxes it’ll get added to the reprint of the Battlefield Support boxes. They might fold the Shilone and Visigoth into an Aerospace blind box set with other new fighters.
My FLGS has tried signing up for the retail support on the website and is getting charged full price? That’s because the feature isn’t live yet. There’ll be a smoke test with a small number of retailers before it’s open to general retailers.
My FLGS is having issues getting battlemats, is this a problem with Alliance? As far as they know Alliance has been stocking the mats, they bought a bunch recently. Loren will look into it, but the only mats not in distribution right now are the Legendary and fieldtech ones. And about half the mercs ones haven’t been released yet.
All mercs products should be in retail by the end of June
When will the Clan Tanks be here? No answer right now, they’ll be along at some point
The Grasslands mats were hard to get. They’ve just been reprinted, so should be available to order soon.
Will CGL be at Pax Australia again this year? Yes.
Will Salvage boxes include items from GoAC, Alpha Strike and so on in the future? The intention is that they will be at some point
Will anyone from GCL be at UK Games Expo even though they have no booth? Nobody is intending to be there outside of the demo team presence
Any more vehicle packs soon? Not outside of stuff like Aces, and they’ll end up in salvage boxes at some point
Email stock issues and distributor issues to store@catalystgamelabs.com
How about QR codes to link to record sheets for a forcepack on the box? That could happen after MUL 2
Will there be more 40th anniversary products on the webstore? Nothing new, but some stock they’ve found or consolidated is going to go up.
More shirts in general? Yeah, both new shirts and reprints.
Hawaiian shirts? Loren’s found a place that can do them and he does want to try one out
Hats? Yes, they have to do some work around economy of scale and rework the line. They’re looking at mixing up the colours and styles
Any word on restocks on the BattleMech Manual in the UK? A reprint of it and some other books has just hit the warehouse and will go into distribution soon. Beyond that it depends on who the stores order from.
UK stores generally order from Asmodee and they seem to have little stock: They notify Asmodee every time something comes out or is reprinted, so it’s up to Asmodee to buy.
Bobbleheads? Loren really wants to do it.
Could we see a BPL forcepack? Black Remnant is going well, so maybe.
Warhammer-shaped whiskey bottle? They looked at it in the past, it’s doable.
Posters? Sometimes they do really well and sometimes they do nothing. Blueprints have done well enough that they’re gonna do more. They’re gonna look at more poster sets in the future.
Is there any chance of getting all the Clan trial details in a single book? Maybe, it’s a Ray question
Shrapnel omnibus editions? Digital probably, and maybe a hardback best-of, like the fan-favourite stories from the first ten issues.
Atlas head-shaped coffee mug? Talon said yes!
Anything they’re eager for coming down the line they’ve not talked about? They haven't held much back this weekend.
Recruitment posters? They liked that idea, like the ones in the old Field Manuals. Loren says they’re gonna do it, but it’ll probably be a set of all the houses.
Poster of the Hot Spots: Hinterlands cover? Loren loves that cover and mentioned the large model Arthur Garlick made.
Art of the BattleTech factories on Hesperus? There’s a Hesperus box set coming…

Lorcan Nagle wrote:Fiction panel with John Helfers, Phil Lee, Jason Hansa, Mike Stackpole, Russell Zimmerman,Bryan Young.
Why does everyone keep coming back to BattleTech? Russell: Because there’s more than one world. You can always find a cool location to set your story. He really wanted a burned-out western space for his story Range War, and figured out a world that fell off the Outworld Alliance was the best way to go. This gave John the idea of a lost planets anthology. Mike: Having been involved as long as he has and being involved in the storytelling summits, It may be a tie-in universe he’s been able to build up huge chunks of it. Bryan: the more he gets into BattleTech, he finds deeper layers and you can really tell any sort of story you want in this setting. It’s ultimately about the people in the mechs. John talked about how the universe isn’t static and things change, prompted by a message in chat from Craig Reed. Phil likes that he can tell character stories, great triumph and deep tragedy centred around setpiece battles. Jason: There’s room for so many story types, be it noir, or spy, or western.
Which type of story do people like writing best? Jason: Novellas. If a short story is telling the end of the story, he likes the room to breathe and set things up a bit more but without the full length of the novel. Phil: Novels. When he seriously pursued novels he started with novels and perfected that form of storytelling. He found it difficult to switch back to short stories when he began writing for Battlecorps. Bryan: He loves the creative challenge of BattleTech regardless of length. He sees word count as another constraint to work in alongside factions, events he needs to reference and things he can’t touch. Russell: He likes the extremes of novels and short stories. He loves when he’s been given the go-ahead to do a novel and get into writing, but also when he gets a message saying “we need five linked one-page stories for Game Trade Magazine, you’ve got three weeks”. Mike: Whatever suits the story. He really liked the challenge of setting up the spine trilogues say, but also the punchy comedy of the Death Kangaroos. He had a joke in his story in Shrapnel 20 and people asked “is that a reference to Bryan’s stories?” and it’s a yes. He loves being asked to set things up for other writers to work on in their works, and the collaboration in BattleTech is more free than in other IPs he’s worked in.
What’s everyone’s favourite story and what do they wish they had written? Russell: Warrior: En Garde, it was his first and it’s always going to be special. It’s hard to top that like how it’s hard to surpass the first series or the pilot of a lot of shows. He loved the intrigue and the change of scale from, say Hanse Davion talking about the fate of the Federated Suns and then Dan Allard helping his lance work through love problems and they both feel important. And Warrior En Garde because then he’d have been writing BattleTech for a long time. Bryan: Ghost War. He feels a connection to the novel because it began the Blackout arc which he closed in VoidBreaker. He found it had a literary quality that BattleTech often doesn’t. He loves that everyone has a drastically different voice, a slightly different vibe for the universe. Conversely he got a note from Jason Schemtzer after VoidBreaker saying “I can’t write like you”, and Bryan said “that’s how I feel about your stuff”, so he’d love to write like everyone. Russell joked that John should commission the same short story from everyone and see what they come out like. Jason: Bred For War. It and Malicious Intent hit right for him at the right time. And a new story still in the slush pile in the War of 3039 that covers something similar to a story he had planned and felt it was better than he could have done it so he just deleted the pitch file. Phil: Way of the Clans/the Jade phoenix Trilogy. This was what got him into the fiction and the universe. He loved how much of a departure the culture was from the other BattleTech cultures he’d been exposed to, it transported him to another world. Mike: Wolves on the Border, it’s stunningly well-done. Of his books he’s got a fondness for Assumption of Risk for how it resolves Kai’s arc. He doesn’t think about writing other books that way, but he’d love to go back to Mallory’s World and do the death of Ian Davion. When he had Ian as a character in Kell Hounds Ascendent he was writing with the foreknowledge of Ian’s death and writing Ian’s relationship with the Kells to justify their decisions and actions after his death.
Update on Audiobooks from the mercs kickstarter? Close Quarters is complete, but the files are large so they’re trying to work out how to get them to backers on a wide scale. They hope to have a solution soon. John and Talon are working hard on it.
Update on the Graphic novel? The first draft of the script is in. John will be discussing his notes with Mike and Bryan over the con.
What’s the Audiobook schedule for Audible? Hour of the Wolf and Fall from Glory are out now, the latter has a technical issue that needs to be resolved. They’re hoping to get back to one every other month soon, lots of audio in the pipe.
More Screaming Eagles fiction? Jason has an idea, he needs to wait for the universe to progress a little.
Any Clan Invasion novels coming? John loves doing Historicals, but there’s a lot of Clan Invasion fiction out there right now. Jason noted Strength of the Pack 1 and 2 are out soon and are Clan Invasion. Mike noted that there’s only so much fiction they can publish in a year and they need to keep the universe moving forward.
Will there be a sequel to VoidBreaker? John is open to the idea but Bryan has a lot on his plate right now.
What’s Strength of the Pack about? A pair of Wolf sibmates who end up on two different paths, and meet up later in life to contrast how they changed.
Can you do another audio anthology? The idea is to release an audio version of The Corps after Founding of the Clans is done
Is there an iconic moment in BattleTech that defines the universe for you? John and Phil said the marriage of Hanse and Melissa and the inadvertent humour of Max Liao grabbing the plates. Russell mentioned a Discord message he read where someone had read the books very young and thought that scene had someone stealing a plate of cake and that was why everyone was angry! His iconic moment is Shin Yodama fighting an Elemental for the first time. Jason: In Malicious Intent when Victor goes up on the roof, offers Doc Trevena a job but then withdraws it if it’ll interfere with Doc’s relationship with Shelly Brubaker. Bryan: The Warrior Trilogy, Patrick sacrifices himself and the idea that someone’s got to go tell Morgan. The tragedy of the event that leads to a gutpunch moment and it worked well for him to combine mech action and character work. John brought up Wolves on the Border and how it’s a rumination on honour, duty and loyalty. Mike: The scenes that stand out for him are the ones with emotional impact. Like he put Victor through the emotional ringer a lot, he was a character who if you made the mistake of not killing him, you’re doomed. He picked the scene where Victor almost dies protecting Omi in Grave Covenant. If it wasn’t for the character development BattleTech would be another Men’s adventure series which died in the 80s.
Will there be more Black Marauder stories? None are in the pipeline. Lance Scarinci has told all the stories he feels he needed to tell, and has left it open to other people to tell stories about the legend. He has a conclusion story in mind, but it’d be 100 years in the future. Jason mentioned he was reading Shrapnel, noticed Lance’s name on the cover but didn’t realise it was a Black Marauder story until it showed up and he went YESSSS

Lorcan Nagle wrote:Post-Mech7 discussion with Tommy Gofton, Jesse Kay, Paul from Focht’s Network, Big Red, Tex (via voice chat)
Jesse, who GMed the game had two weeks notice to get the game together
Paul’s character is one he’s been roleplaying for many years, used him in their Aces playtesting and plugged him into Mech7
Similarly Tommy’s character is one they developed during Aces play
Big Red’s character was developed by Jesse
Tex played his persona of Randolph P Checkers and joked about coming into the game as an opportunity to get paid to hurt other people
It was filmed in Ontario at Six Sides of Gaming’s studio. Even though Big Red is also in Canada he couldn’t find the time to travel there, so he and Tex both joined by voice chat.
Series 1 is 6 episodes. The first two are roleplaying, then two of tabletop using aces, one more roleplaying and one more tabletop. If it goes well they’re excited to do a second game. Josh controls the Aces Decks for the tabletop episodes.
If they do a series 2 they hope to be able to get Tex and Big Red in studio
Six sides will probably be streaming Aces on Sunday
Episode 1 was released today to tie-in with Adepticon, the other episodes will be on a regular Sunday schedule before the stream so they can do a live after-show and then play BattleTech
They’re planning to have a website with character details up
They really enjoyed using Destiny for the roleplaying side of things, especially the collaborative elements and being more about storytelling than detail.
Costuming was difficult as most of the stuff they had was for D&D, so a lot of bits were ordered off Amazon
How did Randolph Checkers lose his eye? He’s going to reveal that story over time. It’s not stupid but it’s not a big thing.
In order to get people to roleplay in BattleTech I have to run modified D&D, how do I sell them on MechWarrior Destiny? They talked about how Destiny is more of a campfire storytelling game. If you want more crunch get A Time of War (Or Twilight 2000 because then you won’t want crunch any more after playing that for half a session). For Big Red it depends on what your group wants. Like if you’re playing D&D for the adventure game, Destiny will need modding to add depth, but if you want more narrative Destiny will be the way to go. Tommy talked about how before Aces comes out, as the GM you’d still need to control the enemy mechs and guide the story, but with Aces you can be part of the team. Ask why people want to roll dice in the universe - to fight people or to fight mechs. If it’s to fight mechs Destiny is better to set that up… Or threaten your friends
What has been everyone’s favourite part of the con? Tommy: Opportunities for grows. Paul: The burger he got for lunch at Dairyland. Jesse: They’ve been running a couple of aces tables and watching competitive players get into it and get into the narrative play has been great for him.

 Ghaz wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
The mechs look cool, and I could see them being fodder for some really crazy Blakist forces. I'm kind of worried about the time it will take to remove all the mould lines from all the detail, though. It's been my least favorite thing abut Restic since the material's inception about 15 years ago.

The BattleTech Gothic 'Mechs are being produced by Liya, so they should be PVC like the majority of the line (only the premium 'Mechs may be resin).

Lorcan Nagle wrote:Intro with Michael Ciaravella
Tommy was meant to be on for a Mech 7 Q&A but didn’t make it so Mike did a general one instead
They had 70 entries for the painting competition
Mike’s highlight of the con was meeting lots of people. The gaming’s been extraordinary, lots of tables packed.
How is development on the ilClan era version of Interstellar Players? Ray will talk about that later, Mike loves those types of product.
How much stock is left in the booth? Not much. They have two booths, a small one near the gaming area with the Virtual World pods, and a larger one in the exhibitor hall. They sold out of Emplacements in about 30 minutes, they sold out of one of the Davion Lances and only had a couple left of the other. The Lunar/City BFM sold out on the first day. They had some copies of the Precentor martial version of Universe
Will we be able to make custom mechs in the MUL? That’s a Ray question
Any work going on a BattleTech card game? That’s another Ray question. Mike got his start in gaming via card games and he’d love to see a BattleTech one
How is fiction selling? Very well. Trial of Birthright was almost sold out, Voidbreaker was for sale, Shrapnel was flying off the shelves, The cookbook sold out on Saturday, and Jamie Wolf’s annotated Art of War was selling well
Are they still planning to do the Bug company box? Another Ray question
Is the Great Turtle getting a mini? Mike thinks Randall said yes about that.

 Miguelsan wrote:
To be fair they said no KS for miniatures, they didn't close the KS pipeline completely.

M.

Lorcan Nagle wrote:BattleTech Lunchtime Secrets with Ray Arrastia and Michael Ciaravella
They’re currently working on the commemorative TRO: 3025. It’ll be as close to the original first printing of TRO 3025 as possible. It’ll include all the original mechs, LAMs, vehicles, and support vehicles.
Have the map-scale DropShips sold well enough to warrant the sale of the Leopard Loren talked about yesterday? Ray isn’t sure but he thinks so. They sold very well at the con.
Will we be able to make custom mechs in the MUL 2? That’s never come up internally. If they go for it it’d be some distance away
There was talk of a BattleTech card game some time ago, any update? Encounters is out now, They got a pitch for an expansion which is underconsideration. there are three other card games under consideration or in early development but nothing solid to report yet.
Have the Encounters: BattleTech promo card been done yet or is it stuck in limbo? Ray thinks it’s been done but he needs to look into it
Will there be mech-scale DropShips? Ray can’t say one way or another. He’d love to see it.
Will MUL 2 have an API like the current MUL? Ray believes so.
Will we ever get the buildings for the City Map Pack? It’s a possibility. They want to get the buildings out to the public in some form but it likely won’t be just STLs as a download
Any chance of a Canopian forcepack? It’s always possible. Ray’s pretty sure it’s on their list of concepts.
Will there be a TRO 3026 commemorative edition? Ray’s been expecting that question from someone and it was the first time it was asked. It’s possible but not at this time
Would CGL ever remaster old scenario packs? It’s a possibility, but not in the next few years due to the current workload
Will there ever be a CGL con event, like Kerenskykon but open to the public? They’ve considered it.
When will Liao get some love? They’ve got plenty of love over the last ten years. They’re lower on the priority list for forcepacks, and tried to balance that with the McCarron’s forcepack. They’re two books down in the Force Manual production queue
Any love for the home Clans coming? Like to fight the society? The WArs of Reaving Trilogy is scheduled for mid-next year with a Wars of Reaving forcepack set to hit around the same time
Any plans for future map packs? They have two more themes in development beyond the ones talked about publicly.
Will the BattleTech to Alpha Strike conversion rules be republished? Yes, as part of the upcoming refresh of the core rulebooks. The replacement for Total Warfare is in development right now. They’ll also have a replacement for Alpha Strike Commander’s edition and will publish the rules as a PDF around the time of it’s publication.
How long is the wait to move beyond 3152? They’re going to move slow, and are intending to spend the next eighteen months to two years fleshing out the current state of the universe. There’s a lot of moving parts and they want to make sure they all move in tandem.
Is there a possibility for models that are in box sets not currently in the salvage boxes being added into them? When they revise the core books they’ll probably revise the contents of the box sets, move the minis in different products around and rework the selections in the salvage boxes at the same time.
What new core books, Ray? The Total Warfare line is now eighteen years old. They’re going to give them a new presentation similar to the BattleMech Manual. There’s concern about the changes, but it’s going to be a case of moving some optional rules to standard, some standard to optional, minor tweaks, and it’s in playtest right now. If they have any potentially controversial changes that are well-received in playtest, those will be put to the player base as a whole to discuss.
Will the new core books have a spine art mural? Possibly
How about a Black Widow Company forcepack? They’ve discussed it since day one, but there are concerns about how well a box that big would sell.
How about Ace Darwin or House Arano focepacks? Probably not.
Would it be possible to get a PDF showing the in-universe order of the books? I’m trying to reread everything in order. It’s something they’ve considered a few times but it gets out of date quickly. They might try and have a resource along those lines on the new website.
Will Alaric and the Wolves stop winning? Look at ilClan’s Eyes Only, Trial of Brithright and Blood Will Rise.
Why does Ray let Loren on-stream with a gag? He’s only just broken out of Loren’s Trunk and he’s going to have to fix that
Any plans to design new mechs? How long does it take? They had several new mechs in the Recognition Guides. They’re up to about 3,000 unique mech chassis. They don’t want to throw out dozens of new mechs each year and it creates demand for new minis which they can’t fulfill. They want to take it slow from here on out. Johannes Heidler is in charge of mech design in general. Anthony and Marco are pretty good at putting art together quickly. It might take two weeks or so to make a single mech, but making a TRO is a much larger endeavour.
How about ilClan sourcebook companion forcepacks? They sort of are, but the delay of getting minis made means they aren’t out yet.
Are the Fox Patrol and Bug Company forcepacks in the pipeline? Fox Patrol is on the list, Ray is trying to get it to the top of the list. The Bug box has been discussed for about as long as the Black Widows, but might be easier to do as it has fewer unique minis in it. Still under consideration.
How about a TRO or forcepack of Shrapnel designs? It’s a possibility. Most of the Shrapnel designs are variants so they might show up in a forcepack but it wouldn’t be a dedicated Shrapnel one.
Are the Exiled Wolves dead as a faction now they’ve become part of Alaric’s wolves? The spirit of what they stood for is still there, we will see more of them. But the faction is no more.
Crab box? If we had a heavy crab it’d work, but it doesn't exist
How about PDF updates for the core box rulebooks? They should be there when a box gets reprinted but they’re less good about it than with individual books. It should be resolved by the time the new boxes come out.
How about a forcepack of notable followers of Blake? Focht, Apollyon, St. Jamais? Maybe
Will there be campaign or mission books for other major events like the Tukayyid book? Possible, some development’s been done. The main focus right now for that kind of play is Aces
ETA on the ilClan era updates for the Force Manuals? Davion and Kurita are waiting on Layout, print products keep taking priority. Mercs is still being worked on.
How about TROs for the early age of war? The founding of the great houses? It’ll be a PDF possibly with print on demand if it happens.
How about a wet navy battlefield support pack? It’s an interesting idea but Ray doesn’t see it happening. He said he’d make a note.
Stone’s Lament forcepack? Something to think about, especially as the Celestials are on the agenda
When will we see an Aces set for BattleTech? They’re working on it but no date at this point.
Can the descriptions of the RecGuide PDFs on the store be updated to include a list of what’s in the book? Maybe
When will the book for mercenary operations be updated? That would be in the MechCommander’s Handbook, which will give a narrative campaign structure for any force, not just mercs.
Will the ilClan-update PDF have new availability, new units or both? Both. It’ll have new units, including ones that were destroyed in the Dark Age era, as well as updates for units that survived into the era.
Any hope of organised play, like how MWDA had under their demo team? Ray would like to see that. Conversations were had over the weekend.
Any update on getting the old sourcebooks into PoD? It’s been going slowly. They add people to work on PoD, get trained up to do general layout and they end up being tapped to work on new print products
Bannson’s Raiders forcepack? Industrialmechs? Bannson’s: no, IndustrialMechs: maybe, they think it’d be fun.
Randall mentioned AreoTech playtesting and BV 3 earlier, anything Ray would like to share? Ray doesn’t know anything about updated BV. They’re looking to create new AeroTech game or games from the ground up.
They mentioned issues with availability of some forcepacks and core products. This is due to Kickstarter fulfillment and as that completes stock will return to the webstore and regular distribution.
Will we get BSP cards for more vehicles or do we need to wait for forcepacks to have them? Eventually they’ll be on MUL 2.
Where do you see the game going over the next five years? Ray’s priority is good new fiction that delves further into the recent sourcebooks. Products that expand the setting and gives players tools for their games.
What products are due reprints? This is outside Ray’s jusridiction
Can we get an Alpha Strike BSP deck? Yes
How about a deck of pilot cards like in the forcepacks, but new characters? Maybe
Any plans for random event cards? It’s something Ray wants to put into the MechCommander’s Handbook. Not sure what form it’ll take
Any plans to restock the original Inner Sphere lance packs? Yes
I’m not enthused about the ilClan era. That’s fair, and it’s why they continue to support earlier eras too.
Capital ship combat when? Eventually.
Any products you’d like to make like toys or statues? Larger-scale mechs and units like the Destiny-scale Marauder. Or even larger scale that can fit an action figure in the cockpit. A lot of what comes out is because of what Ray would like to see as a fan.
Will the Lostech dice pucks be reissued? Ray believes so
Why don’t they do the last 6 mechs from TRO 2750? It could be its own forcepack? That’s what Ray’s been saying
How about a new BattleTroops? It’s a possibility but not in the same format as the original one. It’s something they want to do
Smoke Jaguar forcepack? They’re on the agenda list somewhere
Will the vindicator be available outside the beginner box? Eventually.
How about nuke BSP cards to go with that one mission in Hot Spots Hinterlands? No
Will Aerospace fighters get non-nuke weapons to destroy warships? We’ll talk about that when the Aero game is further along
Will we see new hats? I want Hanson’s Roughriders! Ray too, Mike brought up Talon talking about it yesterday.
Any chance of BattleTech model kits like Gunpla? They’ve talked about it.
Locusts in the Salvage boxes please. They’re looking to cycle through that eventually
Will the minis in the Dominions Divided Aces set be Rasalhague or Kuritan-based? Dominion
Ray’s wearing a Goliath Scorpion shirt. Does this mean they’re getting at least 5 forcepacks? Yes.
Any plans for Clan Coyote or Minnesota Tribe forcepacks? No
Any teasers about the Opfor for the Aces boxes? Jade Falcons for Scouring Sands. Dominion in the second pack, Capellans in another one, and Snow Ravens in the last pack. All ilClan era. All include new minis.
A 50cm Atlas would be most impressive? Agreed
Hunchback forcepack? We’ll be seeing more but not a solo forcepack?
More VTOLs? Eventually
More Clan-Specific forcepacks? Yes
Can the support vehicles from the Star League forcepacks be rolled into the salvage boxes? Not sure.
For the Aces box where the Capellans are the Opfor, can you only play as the Clans against them, or them against the Clans? You’re not playing as the Clans in that box. You’re a team of mercenaries in each Aces box. The idea is that the minis in the Alpha Strike box are the core of your force for the Aces games.
Why didn’t CGL retcon the Dark Age as players didn’t like it? A lot of players did like it, just like everything else.
How about an Objectives II box with the J-27, Saviour and Coolant Truck? Probably not.
Any chance of an origins story for Apollyon? It’s possible.
How about using Aces to run drone mechs in a game? It’s a possibility.
Over the last few years, Ray is most proud of the team. Everyone from the Demo Agents up through the writers, artists, sculptors, production partners.
Ray said a special thank you to the fans for continuing to support the game.

Lorcan Nagle wrote:Wrap up with Loren Coleman, Talon Coleman, Randall Bills, Michael Ciaravella, John Helfers, and Ray Arrastia.

John was wearing a jacket with the Isengrim logo on the back. He said it made Marco jealous. They had some custom-made jackets for staff members with different unit logos on the back, and a Dragoons one was in a display cabinet at the con. They’re going to be doing charity fundraisers over the coming years and CGL will give away the Dragoons jackets as part of these. They showed the jacket off on-screen, the unit name is written in a WWII bomber style.
Are tariffs going to cause problems? Yes but they’re not sure exactly how yet. It depends on whether they stay around and remain stable. They’re going to keep the prices steady as long as possible and have paid out of pocket on some stock already. They won’t be passing ay tariff costs onto kickstarter backers (like say Leviathans) even when it eliminates the margin for CGL. They’re going to try and spread any tariff costs out across the entire product line, but expect, say forcepacks to have a price increase as a result in the future
Can you get the webstore to show whether products have been previously purchased. It would be a massive increase of complexity to show that dynamically when browsing the store and might affect SEO. They’ll ask at least
Will there be a refresh of swag items on the webstore? Yes, it was pending the refresh of the store.
Will we be getting more 6x4 battlemats? Yes, they hope to have one they’re calling “fire and ice” on sale at Gencon
Will the 40th anniversary t-shirt get restocked? Probably not unless they find unsold stock.
They’re looking at more Fieldtech mats
MUL 2.0 has been delayed by real life issues.
How about coolant trucks in salvage boxes? No plans at present, maybe in a couple of years
It’d be nice if runs of limited stuff could be reprinted for when the regional store hubs go live. Loren will consider that.
Officer swag for the Black Remnant? Possibly. (Randall made a joke about SKU bloat)
Any chance of getting Record sheet books reprinted? As in the B&W books they used to do? No chance. The lion's share of people just print them off. The plan is for MUL 2.0 is to print record sheets
Loren took note of doing Phelan Kell’s belt buckle as a merch item. Someone suggested the Steiner Fist as one
Any updates on the new Succession Wars game? Development is going well, they showed it up at KerenskyKon and are hoping to do open playtest via TTS soon.
Atlas Dice towers? Loren is working on an Overlord one. He doesn’t know if he can make it happen in Map Scale due to using the ramp as the exit point and the ramps are very small
How about using the reseen in the anime Continuum box? It’s an option.
How about patches in subdued colours? They’ll think about it.
Plans for Clan vehicle packs? Eventually.
Map Scale Leopards and Broadwords? Yes.
Will the mech combat system in Destiny be expanded on? Not that system no.
Upcoming premium minis? Atlas “with cool stuff to pose it with”
Info on the new RPG? Not at this time
Why have we had so little support for AtoW and Destiny compared to something like the RPG adventures for MechWarrior 2nd edition? Those adventures sold terribly and they need to look into other ways to support RPGs. Shrapnel does regularly feature RPG support in the interim.
Will Gothic get fiction? There’s a short story in the box and after that we’ll see.
Karnov mini? Randall wants to get more VTOLs out for sure.
How about getting Alpha Strike back onto store shelves? The box and Commander’s Edition
Leviathans premium minis? No plans at present
Wet navy BSP pack? Doubtful but they might include boats in other forcepacks
ETA on the Shilone and Urbie forcepacks returning to retail? They want to get the individual salvage boxes into broader sets that make sense. So Savannah Masters may end up in the vehicle boxes, and the Shilone and Visigoth get into a hypothetical aerotech one.
Any chance of a Wishlist feature for the webstore? Not in the short term, Talon is still chasing bugs and doesn’t want to feature-creep the site just yet.
Is there a path to new AeroTech? They’re playtesting a number of
Dates on third star League and Kurita forcepacks? 3rd Star league is in the warehouse, just missed Adepticon. It should be at retail soon. Kurita packs are at print now, expect them about late Autumn.
Any chance to being back the older artists, like Laubenstin, Deitrick and Nelson? A few have done work for CGL, but the artists aren’t always available or findable.
How about in-atmosphere aircraft? That and WarShips will come after the core of aerospace fighters and dropships.
What project are you most excited for us to see? Randall: Resurgent Empires (The Succession Wars replacement) and then Aces. Ray: The MechCommander’s handbook, but he’s got to finish writing it. Loren: There’s a couple of novels he’s hoping to assign to writers soon. John: The Graphic novel. Talon: Runefire
Restock of the older forcepacks? The Clan Invasion ones are in the warehouse now, they’ll be available soon.
Will the next box set be AeroTech? Aces and Gothic will be out sooner. After that, who knows
Any plans to rebalance autocannons? They’re kicking around some ideas.
Will the Marik Force Manual come before the Capellans? They’re after Steiner, no decision has been made on order
Plastic WiGEs? They’d love to but a lot of vehicles need to be done
Any updates planned for the BattleTech app? There’s a big update for the Alpha Strike side coming soon.
Will the Savannah Master salvage box make it to the webstore? Yes (Talon, not unless you fold it into another product first)
How about guidelines for casual play? They’ll be coming in the new version of the core books. And they’re then going to use that as the basis for organised play
How’s the cover art coming for the Wars of Reaving novels? Two are in and look great. The third was hung up with the last art director.
How about the Fox Patrol promo card for Encounters? It never got made, might be done for GenCon this year.
How did the sales at Target go? Will there be another big box release? Loren thinks they went OK but they could have planned better about how to integrate. It’s up to Target if they want to do another one.
Having an official tournament format for Alpha Strike would be great. There was a summit on the Saturday of the con discussing formats
How about a Tukayyid ComGuard forcepack? No plans, they covered off ComStar pretty well already
How is the B&N partnership going? They seem to like CGL very well, they keep looking for their exclusive forcepacks (the next two are 21st Centauri Lancers and Illician Lancers). They only carry a limited stock though.
Hermit Crab mini? That’s for when they do an all-crab forcepack that Randall has had to hold Ray back from producing.
How about soaps? Loren knows a company who does custom soaps…
Flags? Randall has poked Loren about it
What BattleArmour do they want to do soon? John: The Nighthawk because he needs it as a cover.
Final thoughts on Adepticon 2025? Ray: It’s been great to see, not only interacting with the fans but they got a lot of work done. John: He’s really glad to see gaming come back to Miluakee. He loves the city and feels GenCon leaving left a hole. Mike: They’ve completely sold out their last three Tier 1 cons, every event sold out. Randall: He loves that he still has the 40th anniversary patch and when he’s giving them out there’s an exchange of a story about how and why BattleTech means so much to people. Talon: He and Brynn first came to Adepticon in 2018, he joked about how it was the junior team doing the event, just GoAC and Beginner box. The day of setup he had to ring Loren asking for more product because the line for the con was walking past the booth buying everything as they were putting it out on the shelves. To see it grow quickly into such a big thing, everyone in the company comes to con now, they do the streaming…Loren: he’s got big plans for the con, he loves meeting the fans and hanging out with everyone
Decals on the webstore? Talon’s working on it
Loren world-wide tour when? NO! Randall said Loren’s not as stupid as him.
What’s the opposing force for the fourth Aces box? Snow Ravens

Lorcan Nagle wrote:Episode 47



08th April 2025
Guest: Trendane Sparks, Audiobook narrator

News:
-Gothic was announced!
--Coming this summer, hopefully
--The first in a series of alt-settings for BattleTech
--They figured 50% would love it, 50% would hate it, and they’re here for the reaction and appreciate all feedback
-Out now
--Battlefield Support: Recon and Hunter Lances
--Inner Sphere Heavy Recon Lance
--XTRO: RISC
--Legends II
--Alpha Strike Commander’s Edition restock
-16th April
--Battlefield support: Objectives
--Legendary MechWarriors 2
--BattleMat: Savannah River Delta
--Salvage Box: Savannah Master
--Salvage box: Blood asp
--The art of cooking
-15th May
--Battlefield support: Heavy Battle and Sweep lances
--Inner Sphere Pursuit Lance
--Inner Sphere Assault Lance
--Legendary MechWarriors 3
--Salvage Box: Legendary MechWarriors
--BattleMat: City Central Park
-Mercs Kickstarter update will be out soon
--Details for Wave 4
--In the US, contact QML for damages and missing items, CGL for defects.
--In EU,UK,Australia, Asia, contact QML with any issues for now
-Coming soon: Apparent Catastrophe by Mike Stackpole, the second tie-in novella with HBS BattleTech.

-Tariffs.
--Loren is working on a blogpost
--At this point, don’t worry
--They’re not going to suddenly raise prices by 200% or anything
--Things are changing every day so they’re waiting for the situation to settle before making a plan
--Loren expects prices to increase by 14%-17% across the board at present.
--Loren was asked for comment in an article in Forbes
--CGL will eat the costs on backer fulfillment for any kickstarters that have funded. Retail prices will go up for those products however.

Discussion
-Tren half-joked about how you can get very tired when you set your own hours.
-They called out Arvan Eleron. Tren was wearing one of their shirts, He, Marie Bilodou, Jennifer Brozek and John Helfers do a live play on their twitch channel, and Rem does a fiction reading thing on there too.
-Tren got started in voice acting in the late 90s. He was working on a kid’s show, doing continuity and animatronic puppeteering and other stuff. -He overheard a producer talking to an actor in a Kangaroo costume trying to get him to do an impression of the Robot from Lost in Space. Tren was able to do it on the spot, and they got him to do the voice and suggested he could do it for a living. Ten years later he was working in EA and he did some spot voice work on Dead Space, and the engineer suggested he do it for a living again. The following month he was laid off, and used the severance cheque to buy his first recording gear. He did the voice of Duncan Woo for Shadowrun: Hong Kong and Mitch loved his work, which lead to him being hired for BattleTech, and from there John offered him audiobook work.
-Tren describes his voice work as being an artiste. He performs the story rather than reads it, and he reads it before he even agrees to the job. He’ll then send a list of what he thinks are typoes to check and any pronunciation questions. He’ll then record, edit, go back and listen to it back while reading along, and correct before submitting.
-If a story is well-written, he can keep characters separate in his mind and remember their voices to keep them sounding different. If he has to, he’ll keep notes and do some snippets to keep track. He can do about fifteen distinct voices so as long as there aren’t too many characters in a scene he can be OK
-Tren talked a lot with John about adding female voice actors to do dual narration so he’s not doing a falsetto voice to do an impression of a woman. A lot of fan feedback was “Tren shouldn’t do female voices”, and he agrees.
-There’s a whole story about Tren getting very method during recording A Bonfire of Worlds. Where Tucker Harwell is revulsed by Malcolm Buhl eating while they talk. He went and made some toast and ate it messily while reading Buhl’s lines. He got a lot of feedback about how gross it was, and he was happy he got people into Tucker’s mindspace viscerally.
-Why does Tren keep doing BattleTech? Partially because John keeps asking him to, and he’s behind in assignments. He remembered working on the Gray Death trilogy and how the description of the ’Mechs was so different from the computer games, he loved how there was this wide variety of depictions of the same machines. It felt like they were heavy machinery, not the ultra-agile anime mecha, and it was dangerous just being around them. He also really likes the momentum to BattleTech’s fiction. Like the character work and political intrigue feels kinda slow while the action scenes speed up
-Outside of CGL properties, he’s worked on some YA stuff on Audible, Arven Elron’s Grayshade trilogy, SF short fiction podcasts like Escape pod, Starship Sofa. Occasionally animation and games. He worked on a Skyrim mod
-His favourite BattleTech story is Icons of War, he loves heist stories
-His most recent completed work is Eclipse. Splinter of Hope and Rock and a Hard Place are up next. He’s doing Elf in Black by Jennifer Brozek, then the Warrior Trilogy and the Hunt for Jardine
-He recently got a recording booth set up at home, prior to this he had to record at night because of noise in his neighborhood during the day.
-He estimates that 10,000 words works out to about an hour of audio. If you’re working slowly, say due to inexperience it can take up to eight hour to get that to a final stage, he’s got that down to about two and a half times now.

Q&A
-Has Tren read ahead? Is there a story he’d like to narrate? Elf in Black. There’s a novelisation of Shadowrun: Hong Kong coming out and he’s reprising Duncan for the full-cast audiobook. He doesn’t read ahead much, he has a hard time working on multiple projects and has gotten confused when he’s had to (he mentioned working on the first two GDL novels, was editing part of book 1 and thinking he already did it and it turned out to be a similar scene in book 2)
-Is there a list of audiobooks? Not formally, partially because they’ve had so many problems with the production schedule. Easiest thing for now is to search for BattleTech on Audible and discount the abridged ones.
-Has he been approached to do Hungry like the Wolf? John has mentioned it. Jennifer Brozek showed him the art and he assumed it was an April Fool’s joke.
-What scenes does he like and dislike? It can vary from day to day. He really likes when you see the Clans from outside the usual Warrior Caste fighting. A big part of why he likes Icons of War is seeing the civilian castes.He enjoys doing combat to increase the pace and trying to ride the line of reading too fast, in order to make the scenes more tense and anxious
-Was there a particular scene or chapter that was difficult to get right? There’s a moment in Bonfire of Worlds where Tucker is trying to get an idea out but is having problems holding things together, and maintaining the emotional level is very difficult, and he has to redo the whole scene if he loses it, as it can be very hard to stitch together multiple takes
-When will the Third Star League forcepacks be out? Strike Team will be June, might be moved to a Barnes and Noble exclusive. Battle Group will be August.
-Audio Shrapnel when? Nothing’s come from John yet. Rem sees it as less a “no” and more a “when”, but there’s a lot of stuff to get done. The list of stuff in motion is so long that if they’re only doing 6 BattleTech releases a year then there’s a few years of work already in the pipe
-Do you plan to get to a point where every fiction release gets an audio release soon after? It’s not realistic at this point with the production timeframes for fiction. If “shortly” means “within the same year” then it’s more plausible.

 Ghaz wrote:
The new BattleTech website is live at https://www.battletech.com/

They’re working out contracts for EU, UK and AUS warehouses.

 Altruizine wrote:
I mean, they could also "work out" the store just showing a correct price for international postage.

We all agree it's not 120+ dollars, right?

beast_gts wrote:


It's not, and if you email them they can fix it for individual orders. They claim it's a bug somewhere in the shop software that they've not been able to fix yet.

beast_gts wrote:
OK - looking back it was 2022 the last time I emailed them so they must have gotten sick of doing it that way!

Lorcan Nagle wrote:Episode 48.
April 15th 2025



Guest: Mike Richie, Board Games Division director

News
New releases
-Out now:
--Battlefield Support: Recon and Hunter Lances
--Inner Sphere heavy recon lance
-April 16th
--Battlefield support: Objectives
--Legendary MechWarriors 2
--BattleMat: Savannah river delta
--Salvage Box: Savannah Master
--Salvage box; Blood Asp
--The art of cooking
-April 18th
--Blood will Rise
-May
--Inner Sphere Pursuit Lance
--Inner Sphere Assault Lance
--Legendary MechWarriors 3
--Battlefield Support: Heavy Battle and Sweep Lances
--Salvage Box: Legendary MechWarriors 2 and 3
--BattleMat: City Central Park

Discussion
BattleTech Encounters
-It’s BattleTech themed but it’s board games division!
-A push your luck dice game,
-you play as a mercenary unit which gives you special abilities and specialisations
-You flip over cards with target numbers, rolling dice to match the numbers and then deciding to push forward or cut and run with the points you've earned

Q&A
-Are things like BattleTech: COMMAND and Resurgent Empires the purview of boardgames or BattleTech? Command is probably staying under BattleTech, Resurgent Empires is Boardgames
-Any word on the Hot Spots: Hinterlands reprint? It’s in stock now. They’re trying to fulfill held orders before putting it back on the shop.
-Any plans for an Encounters: BattleTech expansion? They tested one at Adepticon and it was great fun. It increases player interaction, adds more units (Mike played Fox Patrol!), there’s a plan to get it into production
-Any word on Third Star League Forecpacks? Strike Team due in June. Battle Team in August
-When will the Hinterlands PDF be updated to the new printing? That's a Ray question
-Any word on Inner Sphere forcepack restocks? Most of the Inner Sphere packs are in stock, they’re waiting on some to come back. It’s a case of waiting until it’s added to the store.

 Prometheum5 wrote:
Bummed the Star League packs are still so far out...

beast_gts wrote:
OK - looking back it was 2022 the last time I emailed them so they must have gotten sick of doing it that way!