Lorcan Nagle wrote:Episode 54

10th June 2025



Guest: Big Red 40-Tech, BattleTech YouTuber

News:
-No Tuesday Newsday next week, Rem is on holiday
-Origins is next week, CDT events and a CGL booth will be there. Quincy from Quincy’s Tavern will be a CGL guest
-Randall will be filming series 2 of Mech7 next week, Big Red will be in-studio for this series.
-While there, they’ll be making an appearance at Torchlight Games and Hobbies in Burlington, Ontario the afternoon of the 14th. There’ll be a full schedule of events all day including BattleTech and Leviathans demos and BattleTech and Alpha Strike tournaments.

-Release Schedule
--Out now
---Lone Wolf and Fox by Bryan Young
--This week:
---Third Star League Strike Team
---Black Remnant Command Lance
---Inner Sphere Assault Lance
---Battlefield Support: Heavy battle and Sweep Lances
---BattleMat: Legendary Battles Twycross
---Shrapnel 21
--June 27th
---The Highlander Covenant by Michael Ciaravella
--Next month
---McCarron’s Armoured Cavalry Assault Lance
---BattleMat: Legendary Battles Thunder Rift/Misery
---Third Star League Battle Group
---Battlefield Support: Emplacements
-June Newsletter will be out this week. There’ll be details of the Shadowrun anarchy 2 Kickstarter. This will be run by Black Book, the French company who proposed the new edition.
-July Newsletter will have “something exciting for BattleTech”
-Big Red talked briefly about the upcoming TRO: 3025 commemorative edition. Ray was on his stream at the weekend and shared some images.

Discussion
-Red just released a four and a half hour video at the weekend, a what if scenario
-His videos are usually deep dives into the history of a mech or faction or event.
-Editing and production are very time-consuming. It takes Red a week to make about an hour of audio.
-Red got into Youtubing by being a community mod for Chapter Master Valrak. He was laid off and decided to try doing YouTube as he wasn’t enjoying his 9-5. He started off covering 40K and got fed up with GW’s business and creative decisions. He decided to make a couple of BattleTech videos as the game’s always been a passion of his, and they blew up.
-He set himself a six month deadline to go back to the corporate world if his channel didn’t take off, and it was clear by month four he could make a living.
-He plans very far ahead. Next videos are the BattleMaster and Vindicator, then Canopus and two more mechs that will be voted on by his fanbase, then the Lone Wolves, two more mechs and the Kell Hounds.
-While he’s kinda excited for Gothic, he’s more excited for Rockets and Rayguns and the Dieselpunk sets.
-Aside from BattleTech, he loves Warhammer Fantasy Battle/Old World, Cyberpunk 2020/Red/2077 and Shadowrun. He originally played Shadowrun 2nd edition with a friend, the only sourcebook they had was one of the weapon catalogues and he loved playing as the Street Samurai for heavy weapons.
-He’s a big Star Trek fan but he doubts he’d ever have a Trek YouTube channel
-He deliberately patterned his Mech7 character after Anton Chigurh from No country for Old Men, and called him a “lizard person”. He’s amazed that the fans latched onto the character and cheer for him. He’s not going to play the same character in series 2 so he can be more of a team player, he insists on playing in-character and his series 1 character would eventually kill everyone.

Q&A:
-What faction needs a novel in the ilClan era? The Lyran Commonwealth, they’re the only faction that’s been left behind, and Hansen’s Roughriders if we’re also
-Who did less wrong: Malvina, the Master, Lester Cameron-Jones or Etienne Balzac? Probably Lester Cameron-Jones. The most evil… between Etienne and The Master.
-Has the Stormcrow B/TC premium mini been fixed? Rem thinks so, she’ll check if non-fixed ones are still in stock and if they can be pulled
-Will the new TRO 3025 be BV2 or BV3? BV2, BV3 isn’t ready to go.
-What Old World Faction would Big Red pick to play? Beastmen
-Will CGL be at Nova open? No confirmation yet
-Can we get a list of what cons CGL will be at? It’s hard to commit due to financial upheaval from tariffs. They’re doing origins, Gencon, Gamehole Con, Pax west, probably Pax unplugged, Essen and Pax Australia.
-What are Red’s top five mechs to see in plastic that aren’t on a release schedule: Juliano, Eris, Quaismodo, Tenshi, Atlas III
-If Red could make a faction pack for any faction/era, what would it be? Dark Age Free Worlds League.
-Yori is Red’s favourite House Lord. Why and what arc would he like to see her take? She’s the most realistic lord right now. She has to fight for her position and be careful. She killed the best general in the Inner Sphere–Toranaga–in order to keep her position secure. She and Julian Davion are the only people who are playing real politics, and she’s ruthless, cunning and vicious enough to stay in power.
-What are the redeeming qualities of LAMs? They don’t have any.

 Altruizine wrote:

 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)

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I'll probably get the gothic box, as I personally think they will make for crazy Word of Blake mechs, but you know what I want?

Easy access to printed rulebooks. Alpha Strike Commander's Edition, Battlemech Manual, and Total Warfare. All three were in stock this spring for about 11 seconds, and then gone, after waiting more than a year for them to come back in stock.

Barely-available rulebooks is one of the things that kept me out of Battletech for the 10 years preceding the resurgence following the Clan Invasion Kickstarter. My Alpha Strike book is three printings out of date, and I hate using PDF's, though I grabbed those from the latest Humble Bundle.

How many people picked up the original Technical Readout: 3025? ComStar's records speak to it being a historic piece of literature. It sold well enough that ComStar ended up publishing four editions, with WolfNet doing a revised edition later. Even with all of the factual inaccuracies, this tome decorated officers' shelves, family libraries, personal noteputers, and MechWarrior cadet training programs. Even with its flaws, Technical Readout: 3025 is still a celebrated piece of work to this day.

But eventually, even these seminal works must be reviewed and collected. The Republic Armed Forces - Department of Political Liaison has worked with ComStar's Historical Archives to put together an improved, fifth edition copy of this consequential work. We would like to present Technical Readout: 3025: Centennial Commemorative Edition.



This updated version features an appendix with new insights on the classic war machines that filled the original Technical Readout. This also cleans up some of the clear biases that were present in the earlier editions and recounts the true history for each unit as is available.



Each page follows the classic and iconic layout that would become a staple of the Technical Readout series, but offers updated depictions of the BattleMechs, aerospace fighters, and combat vehicles that better reflect modern manufacturing specifications. This includes a few variants that were not originally featured in 3025.



We have also made sure to include the editorial notes concerning these updates. Some cover the bias and even cover-ups of the then-secretive and powerful ComStar, others just add more context to a given entry or add further clarification on use-cases for a particular machine. It has been the Department of Political Liaison's goal to maintain an utmost level of transparency when reintroducing this work to the Inner Sphere as to act as a complimentary piece alongside your original copy of Technical Readout: 3025.



The RAF-DPL appreciates your reading of this communique and would like to also inform you that the Technical Readout: 3025: Centennial Commemorative Edition will be made available in August at the revived Gen Con 3125, held in the historic Indianapolis District of the North American continent on Terra. The publication will be made available through your preferred means in September of the same year.

- Captain Nathaniel Machen, Republic Armed Forces - Department of Political Liaison, 13 June, 3125

(Get your copy of Technical Readout: 3025: Centennial Commemorative Edition at Gen Con 2025 from July 31st to August 3rd in Indianapolis, Indiana at booth #1611! It will also be available through the Catalyst Game Labs web store in September 2025!)

 Altruizine wrote:
So it seems like BrooksM may be looking at a place that has the incorrect price listed, or is charging a massive markup (a markup of that magnitude would make me guess that they're not actually getting stock from a distributor, and have extra costs to cover from something like buying retail copies elsewhere and reselling them).

Either way, it doesn't seem like €105 is the MSRP. Meaning Kagetora's follow-up rant upon seeing the price may have had no basis in reality.

 BrookM wrote:
That's the price listed on the site I order my BT from.

And feth NO, not ordering from the US, shipping is criminally expensive and there's customs on top of that, so any savings made are immediately pissed away and then some.

 Ghaz wrote:
We're more likely to see this in plastic before a LAM...

Morgan Vening wrote:
Yup. I've got the $30US "Urbie LAM" in my cart, and it's wanting $157.26 for shipping.

My 87lb, 8 cubic feet of Mercenaries Kickstarter was $177.12.

This has been an issue for me for near a year (similar price when I checked last August), and apparently a known issue from long before that, from all reports.

Catalyst don't seem at all concerned about it. I've emailed/reported it to them three times since (last year, earlier this year, and a week ago), and the best I got was a "We know, we're looking into it".

If it's 10+ months, it's clearly not a priority.

 Miguelsan wrote:
LAMs are back, baby! (Though we knew that already)

M.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Miguelsan wrote:
LAMs are back, baby! (Though we knew that already)

M.

Did we?

Ray or whatever the guys name was was pretty adamant that he wouldnt touch LAMs and thought they aere the worst thing about battletech and only did the urbieLAM because he was given no alternative by ownership but they agreed it was just a one off joke, etc.

Morgan Vening wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
That's the price listed on the site I order my BT from.

And feth NO, not ordering from the US, shipping is criminally expensive and there's customs on top of that, so any savings made are immediately pissed away and then some.

Yup. I've got the $30US "Urbie LAM" in my cart, and it's wanting $157.26 for shipping.

My 87lb, 8 cubic feet of Mercenaries Kickstarter was $177.12.

This has been an issue for me for near a year (similar price when I checked last August), and apparently a known issue from long before that, from all reports.

Catalyst don't seem at all concerned about it. I've emailed/reported it to them three times since (last year, earlier this year, and a week ago), and the best I got was a "We know, we're looking into it".

If it's 10+ months, it's clearly not a priority.

 Ghaz wrote:
We're more likely to see this in plastic before a LAM...

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Miguelsan wrote:
LAMs are back, baby! (Though we knew that already)

M.

Did we?

Ray or whatever the guys name was was pretty adamant that he wouldnt touch LAMs and thought they aere the worst thing about battletech and only did the urbieLAM because he was given no alternative by ownership but they agreed it was just a one off joke, etc.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Heh, i still have the first wave of that kickstarter stashed away in a closet somewhere basically unopened. I refuse to look at it, out of disgust