parakuribo wrote:
The Continuum series is not exactly helping things either.

 parakuribo wrote:
On a personal note, they should have given the UrbanMech LAM a data sheet while giving it rules. It was an April Fools product, but making it canonical and working in Classic would have at least meant making a small update to Aerospace(LAM in this case).

 ScarletRose wrote:

A friend of mine wanted to get into Battletech with the Mercenaries kickstarter so I dug out a copy of Clan Invasion and Total Warfare that I got a long time ago. I gotta say as a newbie Total Warfare needs a lot of reorganizing and streamlining. Just trying to wrap my head around the to hit modifier for moving targets was a huge pain.

 Kagetora wrote:

 ScarletRose wrote:

A friend of mine wanted to get into Battletech with the Mercenaries kickstarter so I dug out a copy of Clan Invasion and Total Warfare that I got a long time ago. I gotta say as a newbie Total Warfare needs a lot of reorganizing and streamlining. Just trying to wrap my head around the to hit modifier for moving targets was a huge pain.

I'm not sure I understand this statement? I know I've been off the tabletop for a while, but the relative movement between the miniatures on it was fundamental to the game and figuring out what you needed to roll to hit with a given weapon. Your movement (walk/run/jump), and your target's speed (in hex ranges, i.e. 0-2, 3-5, etc.), coupled with terrain and the range in-between, was basically the entire game. Could you elaborate?

A moving target is harder to hit

an attacking unit's to hit number is modified by its target's movement using the values in the Attack Modifiers Table.

If the target moved backward and forward...

Team Catalyst wrote:Catalyst Game Labs will always strive to employ humans to create games for humans. That will hold true regardless of what kind of creation tools are available in the future.

‍
In an effort to set expectations for our freelancers, affiliates and community members, we want to clarify our policies on generative AI usage:


* Catalyst will not knowingly publish any art or text–as part of our games, books, and so on–that was predominantly the production of generative AI tools. An artist or author may have used AI tools during the concepting stage of their work, but we will only knowingly accept submissions that qualify as fully human-made. Anyone working with us is contractually obligated to inform us of such tool use, so that we may determine if any boundaries were crossed we do not agree with. Violating this rule may result in Catalyst never working with that artist or author again.

* Community-created content sold through a licensed market–such as Holostreets–is subject to the same limitations noted above.

* Community-created content using AI-generated content, which is given away without any expectation of payment, we cannot control. Nor will we attempt to control those situations.

* If an affiliate or community organization approaches Catalyst for support and/or sponsorship, their use of AI will directly impact our ability to say “yes.” While we never use absolutes–and each instance will be a case-by-case basis–the odds of such support or sponsorship will diminish significantly if AI-generated content is used, especially if it is presented without significant human contribution to the finished work. The standard for human involvement is up to our discretion, but should be considered “very high.” To better aid our decision, we expect community submissions to disclose AI use and document exactly how it was integrated into the creation process. Violating this rule will result in Catalyst revoking any current and/or the possibility of any future sponsorship.
‍

We know this is a topic fraught with legal and moral issues, impacting nearly every aspect of our lives. We are, along with all of you, working forward with the best tools and understanding we have, and hope this clarifies Catalyst’s current position.

Lorcan Nagle wrote:
Episode 77
10th February 2026
Guests: RJ Thomas, Shadowrun Line Developer






News:
-New releases
--Out now
---BattleTech Companion app is now available for phones as well as tablets. Forcepack 5 update out.
---Without Question Audiobook out now
---Remain to be Seen by Bryan Young (free fiction for February)
--Feb 13th
---Heart of Iron by Lorette Bilodau
--Feb 18th
---House Kurita Ranger Lance
--March
---Silent Assets by Dan Isberner
---Shrapnel 24
---Weapons Free, BattleCorps Anthology 3 reissue
---Damocles Sanction audiobook
--March 4th
---Force Manual Mercenaries
--April 1st
---Illician Lancers (B&N exclusive)
--April 18th
---Salvage Box: Legendary Warriors
--April 29th (Most of these will move to later dates)
---C-Scale Mad Cat (repackaged in retail box)
---Clan Battle Star
---BFM: Volcanic/Glacier
---BattleMats: Fire and Ice
---Map Pack: Glacier
---Map Pack: Volcanic
---Hot Spots: Draconis Reach
-Loren gave an interview to Sarna, it came out this week

Cons
-GAMA Trade show. March 1st-5th, retailer show in Loiusville, Kentucky.
--Rem, Mike Richie, Ben, Paul (the new sales manager) and Meical will be there
--Rem will be doing a marketing panel and taking meetings for CGL, Rem Alternis Productions, Chessex and XP Network
-GaryCon, March 19th-22nd
--Rem will be there, doing a couple of panels and maybe a couple of Shadowrun games
-Adepticon, March 25th-29th, Milwaukee
--CGL will have a booth and big presence

Q&A:
-Will CGL be streaming from Adepticon? They should be, schedule needs to be confirmed
-Will Target/B&N exclusives make it to international retail? Essentials was the only Target exclusive, it’s in general retail now. B&N exclusives are six month only, they go to general retail after that
-Any update on the EU Store/distribution? Nothing to report, sadly, Rem does want to do a TND episode with the sales team. They have an international sales manager but he’s on holiday for much of February so Rem will touch base when he’s back.
-Any word on Rem making it to UK Games Expo? She needs to submit her budget request and proposal.
-Any update on merch making it to the Webstore? Rem has asked the sales manager, no timeline yet.
-Will Discord’s service changes affect the CGL Discord server? They’re waiting to see. Discord has announced some things but rolled them back. It is possible that people will disengage and traffic will just be lower
-Loren mentioned four forcepacks have been discontinued, can we get a List? Rem asked Randall
-Loren also mentioned the Clan Invasion forcepack based on the minis in the Clan Invasion box, will it just be the 5 mechs from the set? Rem has asked Randall
-Emplacements packs with bad part fits are apparently considered defective, can we get a return if they’ve been chopped up or glued? Customer service will probably have a more current answer, email store with a photo and they’ll get back to you,
-Will the web fiction that’s no longer available be reissued alongside the BattleCorps Anthology reissues? Rem has asked Randall
-Any word on the City/Lunar BFM? Rem has asked Randall
-Will the Clan Invasion maps be reissued elsewhere? Rem has asked Randall
-There probably won’t be TNDs on March 3rd and 17th due to Rem attending cons the weekends before them.

CamoSpecs Online wrote:We have some new videos being created. February 17th at 1200 Eastern Standard time kicks off a Tutorial Tuesday with some Kell Hounds love.

 parakuribo wrote:
I have a sick feeling Sommerset strikers was one of the four forcepacks being discontinued.....

 Ghaz wrote:
From the BattleTech Forums

Lorcan Nagle wrote:
Episode 76
3rd February 2026
-When will Somerset Strikers be out at retail? A reprint should be on the water now

Update #137 wrote:State of Fulfillment - Some Numbers

Hey MechWarriors!

We are so close to wrapping up this campaign, outside of cleaning up shortages. As of February 11th, there are only 76 orders left to ship outside of the EU and UK! If you haven’t received your order yet, please comment, message us on Kickstarter, or email us at store@catalystgamelabs.com for us to check on that for you. We recently moved to a new process to give us better tracking visibility for these issues, so we may not be able to get back to you as quickly as we would like, but this process allows us to potentially bump the shipper along and have a better paper trail for any individual case.

Any shortages are being tallied, and we will not be acting on this list until we consider physical distribution complete. Fixes for any remaining shortages will range from reprints, to redistributing stock, to refunds as we determine appropriate.

____________________________________________________________________________________

In other news, the audiobook for Eclipse by Jason Schmetzer is nearly ready! We are expecting it by the end of the month, maybe a bit sooner.

After Eclipse, we will be waiting a little while before the audiobooks for Philip A. Lee’s A Splinter of Hope and William H. Keith’s A Rock and a Hard Place are ready. When we have more news for those, you will be the first to know.

Looking at the Wars of Reaving trilogy, the first book is in the editing process now with the others being worked on concurrently. While these have taken a bit to get off the ground, we are expecting great things from the series and John Helfers reports that he is happy with the progress.

And the final fiction report is to talk about the graphic novel series we are working on with Eldon Cowgur and a whole slate of authors. John says that we are getting to a point soon where Eldon’s focus can exclusively be on the artwork for the series, and from what he has seen of the sample art, it is beautifully done!

____________________________________________________________________________________

North America, Australia, and RoW:

As mentioned earlier, we are only at 76 orders left to ship, as of February 11th! All of these orders are being completed with our domestic shipping partner, Platforms.

From there, any remaining backers who have not yet confirmed their orders or paid shipping will be handled as they come in.

____________________________________________________________________________________

EU and UK:

We are currently waiting for remaining stock shipments to arrive at our hubs in order to properly fulfill Waves 4 and 5 internationally. Any shortages from all Waves will be reviewed after fulfillment is complete so we can cleanly adjust.

____________________________________________________________________________________

If you have previously emailed us at store@catalystgamelabs.com, please check your inbox’s spam folder for our response. We have recently seen some of our responses get flagged as such.

Please do not contact our partners about the status of your order. Our team monitoring Kickstarter comments and messages, as well as the customer service email at store@catalystgamelabs.com will be happy to help find your information as it is available.

 Ghaz wrote:
From the CamoSpecs Online Facebook page

CamoSpecs Online wrote:We have some new videos being created. February 17th at 1200 Eastern Standard time kicks off a Tutorial Tuesday with some Kell Hounds love.

Lorcan Nagle wrote:
Episode 78
17th February 2016
Guests: Bryan Young, author





News:
-BattleTech Companion App has been updated with Forcepack 5
-Loren was interviewed by Sarna recently
-New releases
--Out now
---Without Question audiobook
---Strength of the pack compilation
--Late Feb
---BattleTech bullet, missile and energy crystal dice
--Feb 20th
---Hearts of Iron by Marie Bilodau
--Feb 27th
---Star-Crossed Warriors: Ghost bear novella 1 by Bryan Young
--March 4th
---Force Manual: Mercenaries
--March 6th
---Weapons Free, Battlecorps anthology 3 reissue
--March 13th
---Shrapnel 24
--March 16th
---Silent Assets by Dan Isberner
--Late March
---Damocles Sanction audiobook
--April 1st
---Illician Lancers Command Lance (B&N exclusive for six months)
--April-June (dates may shift)
---Salvage Box Legendary Warriors
---C-Scale Mad Cat (repackaged)
---Clan Battle Star
---BFM Volcanic/Glacier
---Map Pack Volcanic
---Hot Spots Draconis Reach
---Battlemats: Volcanic/Glacier (8 in total)
---Map Pack Glacier
--June-July (dates may shift)
---Leopard-Class Map-scale DropShip
---Union-Class DropShip Remastered
---Aces: Snowblind
---Gothic Battlefield Support Abominations: Hulks, Giants and Titans


Cons
-Bryan and Mike Stackpole will be at GenghisCon in Denver on Feb 19th-22nd

Discussion:
-Bryan is very excited about a lot of the new books coming out, he wrote fiction for Hot Spots Draconis Reach and Asphalt Jungle. He wrote some missions for Asphalt Jungle as well
-The current free fiction for BattleTech is one Bryan wrote about the Illician Lancers going to Canopus
-The Ghost Bear Civil War novellas should be out every other month, with a print on demand compilation hopefully following it.
-Slated for May is Ghosts of Timkovichi, where the Ghost Dogs reunite with the Kell Hounds.
-There should be a Ghost Dogs anthology with a new story included coming out at some point
-Bryan is also working on the graphic novel. Eldon is working hard on the art for volume 1 right now.
-Bryan co-wrote a series of comics called Pirate Club for Slave Labor back in the day and did some shorts with Image at some point. He actually owned a comic shop for a few years.
-Bryan and Stackpole co-wrote all 4 volume, with Ray assisting on the plot. There’s a continuing story across all 4 volumes. Tim Zahn and Sam Maggs will be writing guest spots
-Bryan has turned in his script for volume 2 and Stackpole is working on volume 3
-The Fox Patrol will be back in Shrapnel 25
-When Bryan first spoke with John Helfers about writing for CGL, he wanted to work on Shadowrun, but John was all full on Shadowrun writers so suggested BattleTech. Bryan had only played a few computer games and delved into the world from there. He was able to get some Shadowrun work via Augment, he wrote a couple of the columns and a short story in issue 4.
-Bryan’s got lots of appearances coming up this year, he has a list on swankmotron.com
--Adepticon (tentatively)
--Dragoncon
--Gencon
--Congregate in South Carolina in July
-After doing BattleTech-centred appearances he sees why Randall loves doing it, the collective storytelling during games is a great experience

Q&A:
-Is there a sequential list of all BattleTech novels to help someone get caught up? Sarna might have one, but Bryan thinks you should start with the modern era and then catch up with the older stuff
-What story would Bryan like to most have released as an audiobook, and read by who? Voidbreaker, he forgets the narrator’s name, but the woman who did the female parts in Question of Survival/Without Question
-Any word on the Fox Patrol Spotlight On? It’s been written, but it might need to be updated after Outfoxed and maybe talking to Ray about expanding it, but that’s not Bryan’s call
-When can we expect a Battletech romance novel from Bryan? John already has to ask Bryan to write less. If anyone wants something specific from Bryan, it’s best to contact CGL and/or John and tell them you want to see it!
-Aside from Fox Patrol, what forcepacks would Bryan like to see? A Ghostbird or Sudeten Falcons one, with the Gyrfalcon, Turkina, Shrike, and Jiyi pilot card
-Will the Dominion fracture be more fleshed out? That’s one of Bryan’s goals for his Ghost Bear novellas. He hopes that synthesising some of the elements of the sourcebook events and putting them into the perspective of people on the group will help anchor the Dominion Civil War
-If Bryan could write a crossover between any two CGL IPs, what would they be? He figured there’s a lot of potential in BattleTech and Shadowun, like maybe Terra is just the sixth world, but he loved working on Gothic and is excited to just do the BattleTech alt universes and he’d love to work on Shadowrun ones as well. Or a Parachute Panda planet?
-Who’s Bryan’s favourite Shrapnel authors aside from himself? He’s one of the slush readers so he gets to read a lot of what makes it into the mag. He called out the Death Kangaroos stories, James Bixby’s Ace Darwin ones, Wunji Lau, Stephen Toropov and Eric Salzman’s “interstitial stuff”, the Mountain Wolves stories from Rusty Zimmerman… There’s so much good stuff on offer it’s very hard to pin it down to one thing.
-Is the MHA minis game still planning to launch in spring? They don’t have a solid launch date, they’re waiting on approval on promo materials from Crunchyroll and Toho
-Any MUL 2 update? All they’re hearing from Aaron is it’s very soon, but no additional detail
-Any word on what’s in the Clan Battle Star? Timber Wolf, Executioner, Nova, Adder and Mongrel. All remastered, new molds, updated STLs
-Will players in Snowblind get to play for the joiners or deniers? Rem has no info, she only gets details when it’s time to promote
-Will we be getting aces decks for Inner Sphere factions? Rem will ask Randall, Bryan quipped that technically, all the Hinterlands factions are in the Inner Sphere
-Any info on potential refresh of salvage boxes, adding minis from other box sets? Nothing at present, Rem usually only gets that kind of info when it’s time to market. She’s asked Randall.
-Is that a Bucc-ees beaver in the background? Yes, Rusty and the group brought Rem there at Chupacabracon because they said she had to experience it, and she did experience it…
-Do we have a list of the discontinued forcepacks? Randall didn’t have the list either, Loren has it but he’s at ToyFare, so they’ll try and get it when he’s back
-Any word on merch on the webstore? Only that it’s getting added slowly and the bullet/missile/crystal dice are going up this month.

 ScarletRose wrote:

 Kagetora wrote:

 ScarletRose wrote:

A friend of mine wanted to get into Battletech with the Mercenaries kickstarter so I dug out a copy of Clan Invasion and Total Warfare that I got a long time ago. I gotta say as a newbie Total Warfare needs a lot of reorganizing and streamlining. Just trying to wrap my head around the to hit modifier for moving targets was a huge pain.

I'm not sure I understand this statement? I know I've been off the tabletop for a while, but the relative movement between the miniatures on it was fundamental to the game and figuring out what you needed to roll to hit with a given weapon. Your movement (walk/run/jump), and your target's speed (in hex ranges, i.e. 0-2, 3-5, etc.), coupled with terrain and the range in-between, was basically the entire game. Could you elaborate?

Sure, a lot of it is the formatting and density of an important rule being one paragraph. Let me break down how that goes, from page 108 of Total Warfare:

A moving target is harder to hit

Ok good so far, that's pretty intuitive

an attacking unit's to hit number is modified by its target's movement using the values in the Attack Modifiers Table.

And here's the first stumble. Where is that table?

It's not on either page 108 or 109, you know the pages I'm looking at as I read the rules.

There's no other page number referenced.

It's not in any of the preceding pages of the Combat rules.

So now I'm breaking from reading a rule to flip through the book to find this table.

If the target moved backward and forward...

As far as I'm aware Battletech doesn't allow shooting during movement so this whole part of the paragraph, that a new player is reading, is dedicated to an edge case. It doesn't help clarify anything. IMO it should be a separate paragraph after the italicized blurb explaining the movement diagram (which is on the adjacent page, where stuff you're talking about in a paragraph should be, right where the reader can see it).

Again IMO drop the underwater line of sight table, put that in a separate place for underwater fighting and put the movement to hit modifier portion of the Attack Modifiers chart on the page where you introduce the rule. Then keep the full Attack Modifiers table on page 117. Yeah, it's slightly duplicative but you're putting the table in front of the reader as they read about rules for it.

 Kagetora wrote:


Hm. Interesting. I freely admit my books are older, and I'm likely unfamiliar with the one you mentions specifically. Everything used to just be on tables in the back of the rulebook (and usually in the relevant section of the book itself, but the back few pages were an easy reference), but after a few games you didn't really need them anymore. Everyone had them pretty much memorized, and only looked up odd things that only cropped up once in a while.

Sad to hear that is no longer the case. It's not that hard for the publisher to add reference sheets in the back of a book you can photocopy and keep handy.

Lorcan Nagle wrote:
Episode 79
24th February 2026
Guests: Neal Hoffman from Fanroll






News:
-Big Red and Bryan Young are streaming right after TND is over, talking about Star-Crossed Warriors
-New releases
--Out now
---Companion app forcepack 5 is out
---Star Crossed Warriors by Bryan Young
---Strength of the Pack Omnibus
---House Kurita Ranger forcepack
---Fanroll Energy crystal, bullet and missile dice
--March 4th
---Force Manual: Mercenaries
--April
---Illician Lancers Command Lance (B&N Exclusive)
--Further out
---Salvage Box: Legendary Warriors
---C-Scale Mad Cat (retail packaging)
---BFM: Volcanic/Glacier
---Map Pack Volcanic
---Map Pack Glacier
---BattleMat Volcanic/Glacier
---Hot Spots: Draconis Reach

-CGL made a statement about generative AI recently, available on the company blog

Discussion:
-Fanroll is an evolution of a company called Metallic Dice Games
Adam Hackett was working in Chessex around 12 years ago, suggested doing metal dice but they didn’t want to expand into metal, but they let him run some kickstarters for his own company. It grew into a business with a few hundred SKUs
-Neal bought the company from Adam about 4 years ago, he’s got a history with Hasbro Games and was on Shark Tank (with the Mensch on a Bench) too. With his toy background he wanted to bring some more unique, toyetic approach to the hobby and to dice.
-He did some pitches to CGL and nothing came from them, and Loren called him at one point (Rem noted this was during the 72 hour livestream at the end of the mercs kickstarter) asking them to do some hard edge dice. Neal suggested the liquid core dice, and naturally the project expanded to dice trays, more factions for dice and the trays. Loren kept asking for more factions and Neal kept saying yes.
-Fanroll also did the BattleTech 40th and Shadowrun 35th anniversary dice sets.

Q&A:
-Will the Bryan Young Ghost Bear novellas be released in a print compilation? Probably, but Rem isn’t sure of the format, there’s a plan to release a lot of the ebooks in a single POD compilation which may or may not cover it.
-What new maps are slated, any chance of getting a dropport? Rem only knows about the volcano/glacier ones
-When will we see a restock on BattleTech dice? Rem’s not sure, the webstore is still adding SKUs and dice should be up soon. Neal confirmed there’s going to be a restock of at least some factions, they’ll be talking at GAMA next week
-What would be your coolest and biggest BattleTech dice? Neal wants to put little Mechs inside dice - they did a proof of concept that CGL didn’t go for, but he’d love to do a massive 55mm one. Rem would love to be able to roll physical dice and have them show up in an app if you’re playing online, or dice that have some level of projection of the number built in. Neal says the technology isn’t quite there to be mind blowing.
-Will we be getting a product roadmap for 2026 at Adepticon? Rem doesn’t know what’s planned but she’s sure there’ll be product announcements.
-Any update on the discontinued forcepack list? Rem hasn’t been able to connect with Loren since Toyfare
-Any chance of a merch restock? They have a lot of stuff in-stock but it’s slow going adding it to the webstore. They’ll do a restock after this is sorted

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I still really don't understand why at this point they feel the need to discontinue any Force Packs.

Loren Coleman wrote:I believe we retired four ForcePacks total from the current line. Everything else got a reprint, and the four ForcePacks are retired; those ’Mechs will be recycled to other projects. So they will not go away, they’ll disappear in different products.