ScrapYard Armory

I have just now sent off two entries into a Battletech specific painting competition.

The original forum post is here.  The submission rules are other specifics are here.

The submission deadline is tomorrow, so if you happen to have a few recently painted miniatures lying around, now is as good a time as any to get some photos.  There are actual prizes to be won in this competition, which is something I am very excited about.  It is a very nice precedence to set, even if the prizes are small compared to other more prestigious competitions.

I actually had four possible submissions.  I picked the minis I felt had the best chance of success.  I hope my choices are the best ones.  Here are the minis that did not make the cut.

Let me know your thoughts.  I’ll post again with the competition results when they are made available.

Litko Aerosystems is a gaming company specializing in creating tokens for use in popular board and miniature games.  Recently, Litko added a new custom token option to their online store.  I decided to pull the trigger and conjure up some tokens for use in Classic Battletech.

There are four custom token sets available from Litko.  Three of them include 10 tokens for $6.99 while the fourth includes 20 token for $19.99.  Each set includes a limited selection of shapes to make your tokens.  I found the 20 token set to have the shapes I thought would work well so I went for that despite the higher cost.

After ordering I took note that custom products can take up to three weeks before even being shipped.  My wait was far less.  Placing my order to receiving my tokens took exactly two weeks.

The tokens come from Litko looking a little dull but the company offers some great advice for brightening them up.  I put crayon to token soon after getting my sampler in and the results are very noticeable.

I bought an assortment of tokens I thought would be appropriate for Battletech ground and aerospace combat.

• Arrows with ‘Mech/Vehicle/BA numbers for target declaration
• Pilot roll reminders (be honest, how many times have you skipped them by accident?)
• Aerospace screen markers
• Aerospace rolled tokens
• Aerospace evasive action tokens
• Tactical Operations POWER UP tokens!

I thought at first that the tokens were fairly small.  But once I got them on a mapsheet with miniatures, they did not seem so bad.  The tokens are of good quality and I think they should easily stand the test of time so long as they are not haphazardly dropped and lost during games.  (Keep an eye on your cats out there!)

For ground combat, these are not going to vastly improve your gaming experience.  However, with Strategic Operations around the corner, I can think of several great uses for aerospace games.  Deep space can be confusing with Warships and fighters fighting it out.  These tokens may be just the thing to keep your games orderly.

These tokens are a bit pricey.  I paid $26.04 for my 20 tokens including shipping.  You can save money with Custom Token Set 1 or 2, but not all shapes and not all colors are available in each set.

You can get around the shipping issue by combining your order with friends.  Rustle up some interest and make a big mixed order to get everyone what they want.

Overall, I am very pleased with my purchase and now that I know what I am getting into, I will absolutely be making future orders.

The Good

• Good quality
• Looks awesome on the mapsheet with minis
• Custom means something, your imagination is the limit

The Bad

• Shipping makes them a potentially pricey product
• Not all shapes and not all colors available in each set

The Ugly

• They Make Nukes!

At 1Pm today the good folks at Catalyst held a public Battlechat to answer questions related to the demise of Wizkids and the subsequent offer by Catalyst for Wizkids properties.

The full transcript is available here.

The Rundown

Here are the notable notes from the battlechat today.

• It was always the plan to buy the rights to Battletech and Shadowrun.  The Wizkids closure simply advanced those plans.
• IMR has every intention of winning the bid.  Check out this quote.

I plan to be in to the end of any bidding, and I plan to win. So I feel pretty good. That isn’t to say that someone who has deeper pockets than me and doesn’t care if they lose money can’t push the envelop farther than I’m willing to go… but I’ll make ’em earn it.

• The decision from Topps should be expected soon, within the next 4 to 6 weeks if not sooner.  Longest it would take is the end of the year.
• The Mechwarrior click-tech game will not be immediately continued if the Topps deal goes through.  TPTB determined that Mechwarrior along with other IP will need to be conscidered carefully befor action.
• The next e-book will be Jihad Turning Points New Avalon.
• Clan Box set rumors are as follows

The Clan Box Set will be a 2009 release. As for detailed contents, this is the current projected contents (subject to change): 48 page The Clans At A Glance, 48 page Introductory Rulebook Expansion, Clan Painting and Tactics Guide, 64 page record sheet booklet, reference cards, maps, 15 ‘Mech miniatures, 5 battle armor miniatures.

Lots of good stuff to look forward to.

The Luthien Turning Point e-book is the first of hopefully many PDF only releases by Catalyst Game Labs.  I’ve been looking forward to this series since it was announced at GenCon.  At $5, this offering is very nicely priced.

Luthien begins with a brief but energetic fiction piece that illustrates the sadistic methods of the Word of Blake on Luthien.  I don’t see their tactics as much different than Condition Feral but the presentation is different.  It is obvious who the antagonist is and who the reader should be rooting against in this battle.

The Word of Blake are the New York Yankees of Classic Battletech.  They have all the best technology, the best warriors.  I have two favorite factions now.  The Free Worlds League and whoever is fighting the Word of Blake.

As well as providing a gorgeous planetary map, there are mapsheet tables which describe the appropriate CBT map to use in scenarios or tracks based on the terrain on Luthien.

The Combatants section gives a brief overview of all of the forces fighting on Luthien.  There are twenty two forces in all.  Included for each force is a color unit logo, experience levels, and force abilities to add additional depth to your games.  The force descriptions are geared specifically for generating units to be used in the included Chaos Campaign tracks.

There are six Chaos Campaign tracks, all dealing with specific battles between the feuding Draconis Combine factions with notable interjections by the Word of Blake and Clan forces.

While the tracks are entertaining, they are not as coherent as previous offerings from DotJ and JHS:3070.  The recommended forces are varied and it will take some noodling on the part of a game master to meld them all into a single campaign playable by a single faction.

The tracks also show the continued evolution of the Chaos Campaign system.  We saw one iteration in the Starter book series.  The Luthien tracks remove details of force composition (% deployed by player and % of opposing forces) instead leaving it up to the players to come to an agreement.

Optional track bonuses also introduce some different elements.  Prior examples of optional bonuses dealt more with environmental effects that would work against the player’s attempts to complete his objectives.  There are times when these additions work well and others where I am left confused.  I’ll explain.

Blitz! requires the player to exit one of his units off the opposing force’s home edge before the fourth turn.  Not only does this bonus encourage diverse force construction (Fast ‘Mechs anyone?) but also makes achieving the track objectives more difficult because the player will be removing a portion of his force early on in the battle.  Blitz is an innovative and effective optional bonus.

On the other hand there is Grudge Match, which requires the player to destroy the opposing force’s commander.  This to me is not an optional bonus but another objective all together.  It does not make sense NOT to take this bonus when one or more of the actual objectives involves destroying a significant portion of the opposing force.

While I have my qualms, I am a fan of the Chaos Campaign system and welcome any addition to the mix.

Moving on, we are treated to two unique ‘Mech variants and four warship record sheets using the updated style.  Both ‘Mechs look like beasts containing mixed technology.

Another notable cookie in the Luthien book is the prevalence of Strategic Operations material.  There are exact page references included which leads many to imagine, along with several tweets, that Strategic Ops is very close being out in PDF and soon after our hot little hands.  (Just in time for the Holidays!)

That’s not all.  There is a complete multi-page battleforce map of Luthien, all hexed out and ready for the revised planetary assault rules.  This map will be very useful not only to the Jihad era but also those interested in replaying the Clan assault on Luthien during the Invasion era.

The big question on my mind is whether or not the e-Books will be successful.  I’ve already bought mine, but are the rest of the CBT faithful going to follow suit?  I hope so.  I would love for the Classic Battletech community to send a clear message to the powers that be that this kind of product is a welcome addition.  If the Jihad era books do well, we can expect to recieve additional e-books from different eras.  And that is something to look forward to.

After a long wait, the folks at Catalyst have made good on the promise they made in JHS:3070.  The Warchest rules are finally available online for free.

For those of you not in the know, the Warchest system, originally designed by Ben Rome and Paul Sjardijn, debuted in Dawn of the Jihad as a simplified campaign system that revolved around a particular event.  Unit creation is flexible and event resolution is left open enough to allow for a wealth of replayability.

I’ve played through one campaign (DotJ) and have just started another and I have to say I am pleasantly impressed.  It allows for flexible force construction and scenario generation.  It is just simple enough for casual gamers to get interested while leaving the door open for true account-tech lovers to go as nuts as they want.

This release is a huge boon to the community created Warchest tracks available at the CBT forums.  I have plans to pull together a series of tracks based on the War of 3039.  All in good time.  There is a lot happening lately.

The free download is just almost a copy paste from DotJ except for the formatting and artwork.  All of the tables are mostly the same.  One difference I noticed was the way the Technology Rating was presented.  The new PDF gives a formula to calculate the Technology Rating of your unit prior to the start of the campaign.

DotJ originally left it up to the player’s to assign themselves a Technology Rating.  Effectively it was a way for players to self adjust the difficulty of the campaign.  The new rules provide a formula to calculate your unit’s rating based on the percentage of technology in your starting force.

Some Issues, Some Solutions

Not all is perfect.  I have a few issues with the rules based on my experiences running through Chaos Unleashed from DotJ.  Here is a quick run-down and some possible solutions.

• Pilot upgrades may be under priced

I suggest adjusting the price of upgrades.  Going from an Inner Sphere standard (4/5) would cost 10 and 8 points as printed.  However, the next step would double the cost.  Thus going from a 3/4 to a 2/3 would be 20 and 16 points respectively and so on.

Also make sure pilot skills never get further than two levels from each other.  That is, a 2/4 pilot is kosher, but a 1/4 is just plain wrong.  Keeping a balance between piloting and gunnery is going to keep your pilots from getting too munchy.

• Salvage is highly valuable

Salvage is a huge boon to those able to take advantage.  Some prudence on the part of the Game Master is needed to make sure the player’s war chest does not get too far out of whack.

Check to make sure each track really deserves salvage.  Defensive and stand-up fight situations make perfect sense.  However, recon missions, fast attacks, and other tracks held in hostile territory are not going to offer the time or support equipment needed to properly salvage much of anything.

Per the rules as written, salvage is supposed to be sold at half-value.  I missed that line myself on my first read of the rules.  Makes a huge difference.

• While you can buy battlearmor and protomechs, there are no costs to repair them

An easy fix.  Based on ‘Mech and vehicle repair costs, I suggest the following prices.  Battle armor repairs cost 2 support points per suit.  Protomech repairs cost the same as vehicles, tonnage/2.

Just keep in mind that a destroyed battle armor suit needs to be replaced.  Repair only makes sense if it took non-lethal damage during a track.

Chaos Campaign is a free download so get out there and take a look.  It is definitely worth your time.

Wow.

What a week its been.  There has been so much news pouring out I don’t know where to start!  There are some exciting things on the horizon for our game and I am going to remain cautiously optimistic for the time being.  I trust the folks at Catalyst to do what is best for their company and thus Classic Battletech.

Here is a whirlwind recap in case you have been under a rock the last five or so days.

November 10th, Wizkids Games is Closed by Topps

Original story here.  A sad day for a lot of people and a significant source of uncertainty for many more.  I remember picking up the original Mage Knight game when it debuted.  I credit that game with getting me into the world of miniatures.

November 15th, Chaos Campaign and Jihad Turning Points Luthien

Original post here.  Two amazing products and one of them is free.  At a low price point of $5, the Turning Points series is a great buy for anyone interested in the Jihad or the Chaos Campaign system.  I plan on posting a mini-review of each shortly.

November 15th, Catalyst Adds Dark Age to the List of Eras

Original story here.  Not much surprise here.  As the Jihad continues the timeline will inevitably creep closer to the Republic of the Sphere dominated Dark Age.  This move was symbolic in nature and solidifies Catalyst’s dedication to the continuation of the Classic Battletech story line well after the Word of Blake meets it’s inescapable end.

November 17th, Catalyst Submits Offer for Wizkids Properties

Original story here.  There was speculation early that this might be a possibility.  I would have thought that with the timeline and product release schedule planned out, such a move would not be needed until closer to the end of the current license agreement.

There is a lot to talk about.  I will get to it all in time.  Exciting stuff to look forward to.

Keep an eye on the site for more frequent updates in the near future.

Fresh off a surprise win in the Ogre’s Choice Awards, Catalyst Game Labs had one of their newer books reviewed by the folks over at Tabletop Gaming News.

Ken from TGN gives a very thoughtful and detailed (lengthy but in a good way) review that tackles some great issues.

Warchest System For The Win

For the most part, there was nothing but praise for the book.  Especial praise was given to the Warchest system.  I agree one hundred percent.  I love the idea of the Warchest system and it’s ability to tone down the complexity usually associated with multi-mission campaigns.

FanPro tried once to come up with a campaign system, and it didn’t work.  The Warchest system is a quantum leap ahead.  If you haven’t had the opportunity to test drive the Warchest system, go out and buy one either of the Starterbooks or better yet, Dawn of the Jihad for the scoop.

What About Record Sheets?

The only knock on an otherwise stellar product was the availability of record sheets for playing the campaign. Unless you spring for the PDF download, dead tree lovers without access to Heavy Metal are going to be bending their books in order to make photo-copies to play with.  Seeing as this is a product designed for new players, I doubt many will even know what HMP is.

“Some of the Sword and Dragon ‘Mech record sheets are available to download and print from Catalyst’s web site. Most are not. If you purchase the book, you will have to copy some of the record sheets from the back. I found myself wishing there were PDFs available so I could quickly print perfect record sheets at home without having to explain BattleTech to my co-workers at the copy machine.”

It would be great if the PDF record sheets were fully available online.  The easy answer would be to simply buy the PDF from Battlecorps but that may be a bit disheartening for a new player.  The feeling of getting knickled and dimed is unavoidable for someone who just wants an easy way to play. After all, that is why they presumable bought the Starterbook to begin with.

With the amount of manual labor that I suspect goes into the new (Debuted in 2006?) style record sheets that turn up in these books, I doubt Catalyst will or should be giving anything else away.  They already have made available a huge amount of product for anyone to try out.  That effort should be commended.  I just wish more potential new players knew about it.

It is great to see Classic Battletech in the limelight.  The Starterbooks are a great product even for the experienced players out there.  Everyone will be able to find something to enjoy.

The economy sucks.

But there is no reason that should get in the way of your Classic Battletech fix.  Even after Iron Wind Metals raised prices twice in as many years, you can still get a decent Inner Sphere company for under a Benjamin and a Jackson.

Here is a full company of ‘Mechs available from Iron Wind Metals.

Scout Lance

Strike Lance

Command Lance

Battlemaster 20-210 $12.95

Total cost is $120.00 to the penny.  You can probably do even better if you look at other retail shops available online such as Exodus Roads.

I tried to pick good group of ‘Mechs not included in the Intro Box set that would give some options to players while keeping the cost down.  Obviously you are not going to be able to get a proper Lyran company but I can’t perform miracles. You have very good proxy material including a full lance of lights, a full lance of mediums, two heavies, and two assaults.

It goes to show you that minis are not always that expensive if you keep you options open.

Happy hunting.