Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Miguelsan wrote:
Bummer that the Kurita forcepack will be delayed from previous estimates. I wonder if next year we'll get a Marik one.

M.

Well, someone just tariff'ed away a good chunk of Catalyst's spare capital, it's inevitable that'll slow things down for everyone.

The Star League Battle Group via Liya's YouTube channel:

Thanks for the heads up, just now spotted the Mercenaries force manual up for pre-order at my favourite place to get stuff from, mid to late August if all goes well, so put my order in.

Also saw the Kurita Ranger Lance, but that's delayed right? Also listed for mid to late August here.

 BrookM wrote:
Thanks for the heads up, just now spotted the Mercenaries force manual up for pre-order at my favourite place to get stuff from, mid to late August if all goes well, so put my order in.

Also saw the Kurita Ranger Lance, but that's delayed right? Also listed for mid to late August here.

Take anything seen on a distributor's website with a grain of salt as things are usually in a state of flux, especially with the way things are in the world nowadays.

The last mention that I found in the Tuesday Newsday updates about Field Manual: Mercenaries was from late March saying it was being sent to print.

From left to right:...

Back Row: Excalibur, Savage Wolf (prepainted), Wendigo
Front Row: Malice, Savior Repair Vehicle. Peacekeeper

I know none of those Mechs, but damn, would love if they did the support vehicles on their own or in a themed box together already.

I am so glad they're doing more current mechs, that malice looks great.

 BrookM wrote:
I know none of those Mechs, but damn, would love if they did the support vehicles on their own or in a themed box together already.

All of the 'Mechs (except for the Excalibur) are from the Dark Age era or later, while the Savage Wolf's proper name is the Mad Cat Mk IV.

I'm not that enthused that there are vehicles in mech boxes. I prefer my forces separated.

M.

 Miguelsan wrote:
I'm not that enthused that there are vehicles in mech boxes. I prefer my forces separated.

M.

I would prefer that too, but I understand why they're doing it this way.

A large segment of players/customers probably have some level of "mech fatigue" at this point, now that so many are available, including most of the iconic and well-known ones.

When I saw that new forcepack my brain went "we already have a vindicator/mad cat/sagittaire/cataphract at home" and then "but I do want that vehicle tho".

I don't know what else they could do other than mix desirable + undesirable models at this point. The alternative is selling nothing or having extremely niche, largely undesirable products that only completionists are interested in.

 Altruizine wrote:
I would prefer that too, but I understand why they're doing it this way.

A large segment of players/customers probably have some level of "mech fatigue" at this point, now that so many are available, including most of the iconic and well-known ones.

When I saw that new forcepack my brain went "we already have a vindicator/mad cat/sagittaire/cataphract at home" and then "but I do want that vehicle tho".

I don't know what else they could do other than mix desirable + undesirable models at this point. The alternative is selling nothing or having extremely niche, largely undesirable products that only completionists are interested in.

Agreed, even if I don't want to pay extra for a vehicle I don't want. I wonder if Ironwind has records of how many coolant trucks were cast and how many distributors actually purchased. It would be better if we had end user figures, but that's impossible to get. Anecdotally, when Ironwind was still Ral Partha, the coolant trucks at my LGS did not sell. Our completionists were not THAT fanatic.

I can see why they do it but yeah, this is my personal preference haha, but I am not that fond of the post-Succession War designs myself, so I have little desire to collect those. I got the Second Star League set thinking I could use some of the Mechs for that era but nope, research error on my part there. At least I got the most expensive coolant truck now for future games. 😅

 BrookM wrote:
I got the Second Star League set thinking I could use some of the Mechs for that era but nope, research error on my part there. At least I got the most expensive coolant truck now for future games. 😅

The Second Star League was from 3058 to 3067, during the Clan Invasion and Civil War eras. The newest 'Mech in the Second Star League Assault Lance (the Argus) was introduced in 3062. You should be perfectly fine using any of the 'Mechs during the Second Star League unless you're playing specific historic battles.

3058 is past succession wars era, the only mech in that pack that can be fielded between 2780 and 3050 in Inner Sphere (I assume OP does not play pre-invasion clans) is the Emperor, and even that is limited in availability to basically comstar past certain point.

Correct, meant to say I mainly enjoy the Star League / Succession Wars era. I got stuff beyond that so can always play then as well with more modern stuff, but we mainly like those earlier eras ourselves for play.

There are three models of the Emperor (EMP-1A, EMP-5A and EMP-6A) that can be used in the Star League era.

Go to the 3-minute mark for the big reveals...



EDIT: I can see now why the BattleTech Gothic box is going to cost a little bit more. There's some big boyz in that box...

€105 is a bit too much for me for a starter, can't justify getting it just for that Marauder and Scorpion. 😅

But kudos to them for including so many options for the Atlas.

From the BattleTech Forums:

Fat Guy wrote:The rulebook and primer are much longer than those in AGoAC, there are counters for Abominations, and the record sheets are full color laminated premiums.

 BrookM wrote:
€105 is a bit too much for me for a starter, can't justify getting it just for that Marauder and Scorpion. 😅

But kudos to them for including so many options for the Atlas.

I'm not up to speed on a lot of current pricing for BT, but I've been aware of GW's ridiculousness for 30 years now.

How many Mechs do you get for 105 Euros again? Because it better be a lot. Like...40+.

Why do I say that? I recently wanted to 3D print some holo-field bits for the bases of my beloved Murder Clowns (Harlequins). The kind like Kyganil has on his base. I bought and downloaded some files for user-created holo-field bits, and went to the MakerSpace area of my local library, because they have 3D printers I can use for $0.05 per gram of plastic filament. I was curious how a Battlemech would turn out, so I brought along an .stl file of a Shadowhawk someone had created from the MWO graphics, and printed that too.

It came out perfect. The person in charge of the MakerSpace would have charged me $0.25 for it, if I hadn't just handed them some bills as a thank you and donation to the library for teaching me how to 3D print.

I can now go purchase a Bambu Labs A1 Mini printer (with slicing software) for $250. With that, I can print Battlemechs, Vehicles, Infantry, Terrain, and everything else for the game either for the cost of filament or for a few dollars extra to donate to the creators of the non-free .stl files.

What is the exact business model here? How does it work?

GW keeps a lid on things ONLY through their official events, which make up a non-trivial portion of their revenue by requiring that those who participate us GW-produced minis. Beyond that, even they are in the same boat.

I don't see "official Battletech tournaments" as a viable way of keeping people from just...printing minis for free? Or at least for just the cost of the printer and materials, which, at the end of the day, is far cheaper than retail.

Is it just morality that keeps BT afloat financially? I'd respect that if it were true, but I'd doubt its future viability. How are these starter sets worth 105 Euros at the end of the day?

Official minis? There are no official minis for BT. Ral Partha used to make BT minis. Iron Wind makes BT minis. Back in the day FASA released some minis. There are a bunch of clickyTech minis running around. And then there are the new Catalyst minis, which may be the best, but are certainly not 'official' in any sort of exclusionary manner.

BattleTech is not Warhammer/40K. It's a board game that can be played with minis. We started playing this game with cardboard stands, not minis. Proxying is common and uncommented on so long as it's clear what is what.

And Catalyst isn't going to kick you out of an event for using those cardboard stands, old minis, or even 3D prints. It's not that kind of company, and we're not that kind of players.

Kagetora wrote:I'm not up to speed on a lot of current pricing for BT, but I've been aware of GW's ridiculousness for 30 years now.

How many Mechs do you get for 105 Euros again? Because it better be a lot. Like...40+.

This is the contents of the BattleTech Gothic box...

Vulcan wrote:Official minis? There are no official minis for BT. Ral Partha used to make BT minis. Iron Wind makes BT minis. Back in the day FASA released some minis. There are a bunch of clickyTech minis running around. And then there are the new Catalyst minis, which may be the best, but are certainly not 'official' in any sort of exclusionary manner.

Yes, there are 'official' miniatures and those are the miniatures based on the intellectual property and that have a license from the intellectual property holder (which is Topps) to produce them. With that said, what miniatures someone uses is up to the organizers of the conventions.

 Kagetora wrote:

Why do I say that? I recently wanted to 3D print some holo-field bits for the bases of my beloved Murder Clowns (Harlequins). The kind like Kyganil has on his base. I bought and downloaded some files for user-created holo-field bits, and went to the MakerSpace area of my local library, because they have 3D printers I can use for $0.05 per gram of plastic filament. I was curious how a Battlemech would turn out, so I brought along an .stl file of a Shadowhawk someone had created from the MWO graphics, and printed that too.

It came out perfect. The person in charge of the MakerSpace would have charged me $0.25 for it, if I hadn't just handed them some bills as a thank you and donation to the library for teaching me how to 3D print.

The first thing that jumps out to me about this post is that you must obviously have a very different definition of "a perfect mini" from many people, if you would apply that description to an FDM print.

Also of note is that the current MechWarrior video games are from Piranha Games under a license from Microsoft who holds the IP. Therefore, any miniatures based on MechWarrior wouldn't qualify as an 'official' BattleTech miniatures. BattleTech's intellectual properties after FASA closed up shop are a bit tangled to say the least.

Again, if CGL, Topps or whoever would just sell us the STL's of their current models (or dare I say, packs with options for all variants 😍), that'd be ace, as I while I played the crap out of MW5 in coop, the ingame models just didn't do it for any of us, the current tabletop models have a nice vibe going on that the MW5 models just lack.

Contents of the box look fine to me.
I mean, they look stupid to me, but the amount for money is good.

And yea, hilarious about FDM minis.

If all of the prepaints looked like that Lament...

 Altruizine wrote:

 Kagetora wrote:

Why do I say that? I recently wanted to 3D print some holo-field bits for the bases of my beloved Murder Clowns (Harlequins). The kind like Kyganil has on his base. I bought and downloaded some files for user-created holo-field bits, and went to the MakerSpace area of my local library, because they have 3D printers I can use for $0.05 per gram of plastic filament. I was curious how a Battlemech would turn out, so I brought along an .stl file of a Shadowhawk someone had created from the MWO graphics, and printed that too.

It came out perfect. The person in charge of the MakerSpace would have charged me $0.25 for it, if I hadn't just handed them some bills as a thank you and donation to the library for teaching me how to 3D print.

The first thing that jumps out to me about this post is that you must obviously have a very different definition of "a perfect mini" from many people, if you would apply that description to an FDM print.

Fair enough. "Perfectly ok" would have been a better statement. There's nothing seriously wrong with it that a little sanding/file work wouldn't clean up, and in the end it would be significantly better than many lines of miniatures I've seen produced for sale over 40+ years. After some of that, a decent paint job and a nice base, it would pass the two-foot rule with flying colors.

And it was $0.25. That much cash for 8 minis and some softback books, cards, a poster-map and such seems pricey, although not GW-level gouging. Just an opinion.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Contents of the box look fine to me.
I mean, they look stupid to me, but the amount for money is good.

And yea, hilarious about FDM minis.

I don't see "Gothic" at all in those models. I see "Fallout Raider"

 BrookM wrote:
€105 is a bit too much for me for a starter, can't justify getting it just for that Marauder and Scorpion. 😅

But kudos to them for including so many options for the Atlas.

Where'd you get that number from, anyway?

I see US preorders for it in the range of 75-80 USD, and Canadian preorders from 115-135 CAD.

I know BT has a reputation of being hard to find in Europe, but I wouldn't expect them to mark the price up that high.

edit: for clarity, 75 USD = 65 euro, and 115 CAD = 73 euro

you would be better off ordering it from NA and paying for shipping than paying 105 euro (but I am still looking for confirmation that's a real number and you didn't make it up lol)