ScrapYard Armory

For those of you who have read my A Time of War after action report Bad Intel, you no doubt recall the center piece terrain feature, a downed BSW-X1 Bushwacker ‘Mech.

This was an idea that I had for a while and was pleased to finally have an opportunity to pull it all together with a scenario to go with it.  Here is a step by step recap of what was required to go from childhood toy to BattleTech terrain!

Found on eBay

First things first I needed the parts.  I found a lightly used Tyco Bushwacker toy on eBay for a steal at $20 shipped.  This particular auction was a bit on the low side since it was missing a few of the missiles and the ejection seat was non-functional.  This would be a serious red flag for a collector but since I didn’t need them I was happy to get the cheaper price.

Filling in the Gaps

The back of the legs and arms of the Bushwacker are hollow.  I wanted the ‘Mech to be a little more complete so I thought of ways to fill in the gap.  I ended up using expanding foam to fill the bulk and then later adding a thin layer of epoxy after the first coat of paint.

After waiting overnight for the foam to dry an exacto knife was used to carefully cut out the backside contours of the legs and one arm.  The epoxy coat I felt was necessary to finish the look.  The expanding foam is full of holes and pores.  It covers the bulk of the missing volume but it lacks a smooth surface to accept paint.

First Coats of Paint

The first base coat of paint involved black Apple Barrel paint.  This stuff is cheap and covers well.  No need to waste higher priced paints when you have a cheap alternative.  This is the same paint that I used for other terrain products.

Black may be a bit boring but it goes with everything.  It’s a good night camo as well.

Battle Damage

Break out the Dremel and prepare to get messy.  I traced a quick outline of the damage I wanted on the rear section of the ‘Mech using an exacto knife.  From there, I loaded in my largest drill bit and went to work mauling the cheap plastic until the edges looked appropriate for an armor breach.

At this time I also removed the ejection seat components and hollowed out the back of the cockpit to make room for additional accessories.  This step was an absolute pain.  While the rest of the ‘Mech was made of a soft plastic that yielded readily to my Dremel, the cockpit components were a harder variety that fought me at every turn.  After a good fight I had the desired space available.

The next step was to put something interesting to look at inside the gaping hole.  I couldn’t just leave it empty.  I opened up my trusty box of MechWarrior minis and found an appropriately looking torso, an Avalanche.   I cut the mini apart and painted the torso flat black followed by a dry brush of gun-metal.  The engine-ish looking part was then attached to the inside of the battle damaged section with a dab of 5-min epoxy and a lot of patience.  I had to use a popsicle stick and a glob of Sculpy putty to position it correctly and then held it there for several minutes until the epoxy set.

Let There be Light

We are looking good so far but what I really wanted was a custom lighting effect to make this ‘Mech really rock!

I used a PIC microcontroller to control three LED lights.

• White LED – ambient cockpit lighting
• Red LED – blinking error/warning lights inside the cockpit
• Blue LED – reactor core fade in fade out effect around the battle damage

I had some existing code for a pulse width modulation (PWM) controller that I re-purposed for this project.  The three lights are controlled by modifying their PWM value within the main loop of the program.  The interrupt service routine takes those PWM values and does the real magic behind the scenes.

I made my first set of wires way too long and ended up trimming them significantly so they would fit in the limited space within the cavity behind the cockpit.  A small piece of wax paper helps to diffuse the blue led by the battle damage and a small cut out of black construction paper is all that is needed to hide the controller and battery behind the cockpit.

Finished Product

The entire ‘Mech was dry brushed with grey and white to bring out the panel lines.  It looked great on the battle field and really helped to bring the game to life.  If I have more time later I may see if I can’t convert a few more ‘Mechs for use in A Time of War games.

This game was played at NJCon 2011 in Somerset, NJ.  Thanks go to Jim “Ratboy” Williamson for hosting the event sponsored by Time Warp Comics & Games.  The following scenario is based on ‘Scenario 2: When The Bough Breaks’ from The Fall of Terra.  Standard BattleTech Quick-Strike rules are in effect for this fast and furious battle for escape!

The Fall of Terra: When the Bough Breaks

Salina, Kansas, North American Continent 1400 Hours, 28 February 3058 The two Comstar Com Guard Battalions stationed at Salina were designated by the Word of Blake as the main security force for the North American continent.  Neutralizing the Salina facility and its troops became imperative for the Word of Blake forces once they had attacked and taken the Hilton Head compound.  Although they enjoyed numerical superiority, the WoB Lancers would take horrendous casualties in a direct assault, and so they settled on a less direct course of action.

As the Lancer ‘Mech regiment encircled the base, a pair of Lancer fighters approached the base and requested emergency landing clearance from the unsuspecting defenders.  After receiving permission to land, the fighters began standard landing approaches, then suddenly pulled up and dropped a pair of J91 Fuel-Air devices on the base.

The resulting blast destroyed the Salina command structure and killed or injured almost half of the facility’s combat ready troops.  Realizing they would be crushed by the surrounding WoB forces, a number of junior officers rallied together and ad-hoc command to lead lead their troops through the Lancer regiment.

Word of Blake: Shadow Lancer, 2nd Battlemech Battalion

Assault Lance (65 pts)

• Phoenix Hawk PXH-4L(19 pts)
• Warhammer WHM-7M (15 pts)
• Goliath GOL-3M (15 pts)
• Thunderbolt TDR-9M (16 pts)

Pursuit Lance (44 pts)

• Panther PNT-9R (8 pts)
• Crab CRB-27 (12 pts)
• Raijin RJN101-A (14 pts)
• Wolfhound WLF-3S (10 pts)

ComStar: Com Guard 201st Division, Alpha and Beta Battalions

1st Provisional Lance (70 pts)

• Grasshopper GHR-5J (19 pts)
• Marauder MAD-5M (15 pts)
• Awesome AWS-9Q (19 pts)
• Black Knight BL-9-KNT (17 pts)

2nd Provisional Lance (44 pts)

• Raijin RJN101-A (14 pts)
• Mercury MCY-99 (6 pts)
• Bombardier BMB-12d (15 pts)
• Owens OW-1C (9 pts)

Objectives The Com Guard forces are attempting to escape from the encircling WoB forces.  The ComStar force must exit as many units as possible off the other side.  The Word of Blake forces are the last line that can put an end to the Com Guards before they can regroup and refit.

Special Conditions

Blizzard conditions made weapons fire a more difficult, but allowed ‘Mechs to overheat to do more damage without penalty.

Unit Cohesion practiced by the WoB Shadow Lancers prevents units from straying too far from their closest lance mate.

The Com Guard 2nd Provisional lance was late to the party, entering combat on turn 2.

Turn 1 – WoB wins Initiative

The Lancers lie in wait having lined up across the hilltops with the pursuit lance to the right and assault lance to the left. Com Guard’s 1st Provisional Lance enters the combat zone generally headed towards the Lancers’s pursuit lance keeping some woods between the two forces.  The Mercury of the 2nd Provisional Lance moves quickly ahead.

A few pot shots are taken by both forces over the trees to and from the hill top, but at such a long range nothing connects.

WoB: 0; ComStar: 0

Turn 2 – WoB wins Initiative

The Com Guard Grasshopper enters the combat zone with the remaining 2nd Provisional Lance, but breaks away from the main force to hide in the far woods to the WoB’s left to draw WoB units.  The Raijin and mercury take cover in the woods as the Owens moves to catch up to the Mercury while the heavier units slowly advance together.

The WoB Assault Lance advances toward the main ComStar group.  While the Crab advances to bring its weapons into range the Wolfhound advances to add pressure.

The Raijin and Panther aim carefully from their perch on the hill, but still their long range shots go wide.  Return fire does the same.

WoB: 0; ComStar: 0

Turn 3 – WoB wins Initiative

The Com Guard’s heavy units continue to advance while their lighter units take cover in or behind trees. The Grasshopper slowly advances through its own tree cover.

The WoB Pursuit Lance lunges forward as the slower Assault Lance takes cover in the woods to fire on the oncoming assailants managing to slough off much of the Black Knight’s armor.   Combined Com Gaurd fire begins to whittle down the Warhammer’s Armor.

WoB: 0; ComStar: 0

Turn 4 – WoB wins Initiative

The Com Guard’s heavy units are separated as some take cover in the woods and others stay out of close range to provide fire support with a greater firing sweep.  The Grasshopper advances to flank the WoB from the far side and although the Mercury is already far behind the WoB line, it does not leave the combat zone just yet.

The WoB Phoenix leaps forward into the fray as the Thunderbolt advances.

The pursuit lance lines up on the Marauder and Black Knight, but their shots are wasted on the Black Knight destroyed by their heavier counterparts and fail to find the Marauder through the trees.

Out in the open, the Thunderbolt loses most of its armor while the Raijin has all its external armor stripped away in one shot. Meanwhile, the Warhammer and Goliath put a hurtin’ on the Awesome, but in return, the Warhammer’s structure is critically hit nearly immobilizing it.  The Owens damages the Wolfhound from the rear.

Engaged in point blank combat, the WoB Phoenix Hawk and Com Guard Raijin kick at each other.

WoB: 5; ComStar: 0

Turn 5 – Com Guard Wins Initiative

With it’s faster units having moved around the advancing WoB defense line they now take up positions on the hills where the WoB originally awaited the Com Guard.  Some of the heavier units even fall back to take up firing positions to completely surround the WoB.

The WoB is forced to take cover where ever they can.  Retreating to the woods it just left, the armorless Thunderbolt has it’s head excised anyway, but not before it can concentrate fire with lance mates to deal heavy damage to the Awesome.

Caught in the open the Mercury damages the WoB Raijin’s weapon and leaves very little of the structure.

The skilled Marauder pilot fires on the Panther crippling it’s movement while doing the same to the Wolfhound with a swift kick, single handedly handicapping the Pursuit Lance’s pursuit capability and leaving their structure hanging by threads as well.

WoB: 5; ComStar: 2

Turn 6 – Com Guard wins Initiative

The WoB’s near armorless Warhammer remains in position with nowhere to hide hoping to project its fury one last time while the Goliath advances to pressure the Com Guard force.  Getting the drop on the WoB, the Marauder and Raijin take up positions behind the Goliath and Warhammer respectively. The WoB Phoenix manages to maneuver into position behind the Bombardier and Awesome.

After damaging the Marauder, the Warhammer succumbs to solid blows from the Raijin’s weapons and a kick.  The furious Goliath pilot mule-kicks the Marauder who returns the favor.

WoB: 10; ComStar: 4

Turn 7 – Com Guard wins Initiative

Taking cover on the edge the nearby woods to maximize its fire arc in the direction of the ComStar’s objective, the Bombardier instead moves behind the WoB Phoenix hawk.  The WoB Goliath moves to nearby cover where the majority of the decimated Pursuit Lance remains.   The Com Guard Raijin and Marauder take the opportunity to advance toward freedom while moving away from the remaining WoB forces.

The Mercury and Owens, playing it safe, leave the combat zone.  Concentrated fire from both the Marauder and Bombardier is enough to fell the Goliath.

WoB: 10; ComStar: 13

Turn 8 – WoB wins Initiative

The fresh Crab decides to pursue the heavily damaged Marauder while the Phoenix Hawk hops to another firing position as the Bombardier takes its place.  The lighter ‘Mechs remain in cover or avoid damage by staying out of range.

As the slower Grasshopper nears its objective, the Com Guard Raijin takes the opportunity to stick its head out to dent the Crab’s fresh armor.   Weapons fire damages the Bombardier, but return fire completely misses.

WoB: 15; ComStar: 18

Turn 9 – WoB wins Initiative

The Phoenix Hawk joins the Crab in pursuit of the Marauder as the Bombardier moves backward.  The WoB Raijin moves into a safe position to follow the Crab.   The Com Guard units take up defensive positions as they move around the WoB’s defensive line.  All shots miss.

WoB: 15; ComStar: 18

Turn 10 – WoB wins Initiative

The Phoenix Hawk and Crab come out of cover to continue their pursuit of the Marauder as their Raijin comrade follows carefully.

The armorless WoB Raijin gets a lucky shot on the Bombardier while avoiding incoming fire.  The Grasshopper and Rajin combine fire to turn the Crabs armor to molten slag.  The Marauder and Crab then assure each others destruction.

WoB: 15; ComStar: 18

Turn 11 – WoB wins Initiative

As the WoB Phoenix Hawk takes a forward firing position the Raijin moves away to cover.   Nobody finds their target.

WoB: 15; ComStar: 18

Turn 12 – WoB wins Initiative

The Phoenix continues to nag at the Bombardier’s armor while the Raijin once again cautiously advances.  The Panther slowly moves toward it’s lance mate while remaining far away from the enemy threat.

WoB: 15; ComStar: 18

Turn 13 – WoB wins Initiative

The WoB Phoenix screams toward the retreating Bombardier as the armorless Raijin risks leaving cover to strike at the Bombardier.

The Phoenix lands a hit on the Bombardier, but a solid blow comes from the Raijin which is more than enough to crumple the Bombardier’s structure.

The ComGuard isn’t so lucky not finding a single hit of their own.

WoB: 20; ComStar: 18

Turn 14 – WoB wins Initiative

The Com Guard Grasshopper and Raijin begin to withdraw taking cover from the advancing WoB.

WoB: 20; ComStar: 18

Turn 15 – Com Guard wins Initiative

The Com Guard Grasshopper and Raijin escape WoB’s grasp… for now.

WoB: 20; ComStar: 28

Aftermath:

A marginal victory for the Com Guard 201st.

Of the 40 ‘Mechs and vehicles in the Com Guard force at Salina, only 22 ‘Mechs made it through the encircling WoB Shado Lancer’s line.  These survivors fled west, hoping to reach one of several Com Guard supply depots in the Rocky Mountains.  However, a number of Lancer units moved to pursue them, and the chase was on!

NJ Con 2011 is in the books and it was a great con.  NJ Con is a small New Jersey based convention that packs a lot of gaming into a small frame.

The convention site this year was the La Quinta in Somerset NJ.  The lighting was good and the on site facilities were better than I expected.  More importantly there was a wide range of games for con-goers to try out.  The small venue works to NJ Con’s advantage.  If you are in the NJ area you have no excuse not to miss this budget priced convention.

A Scheduling Controversy?

I had reports from the field that some of the afternoon games started earlier than their posted 2PM times.  At least one potential con goer was upset at missing the start of a few games and left disgruntled.  For the record all BattleTech games started at their prescribed times.  Not an issue for most but something the convention staff should seek to nail down.  I’ve heard countless stories of games starting late in my day but early starts are a rarer beast.

BattleTech Gaming

Jim “RatBoy” Williamson was on hand from Time Warp Comics and Games to host two QuickStrike games based on the Fall of Terra scenario book.  Both games were great and made use of a custom generated record sheets which may be seeing a more formal release in the near future.  They certainly helped the game along and proved super easy to use.  Expect two after action reports in the future here at the ScrapYard!

ScrapYard contributor SaxyWolf hosted a Grinder Saturday evening that was well attended and a lot of fun.  By the end of the night the players had only gotten up to Heavy ‘Mechs but they made sure to blast apart almost all of the Medium units before they got there.  Copious tons of armor were reduced to slagged over the 4+ hours of Grinder mayhem.  We used our usual setup of MechWarrior figures and 2 inch hex terrain with homemade hills and trees.  New this year is heavy duty laminated record sheets which worked quite well.  Players used dry erase markers to mark damage making the whole set reusable.

After a day of sitting in the car after the con, the record sheets were a tad stubborn to get super clean.  A little bit of baking soda on a damp paper towel was enough to scrub them new as the day we made them.

Operation Mallard Freedom

Between games while getting a breath of fresh air outside, SaxyWolf came across just the cutest duck family you ever did see.  Momma duck was carefully leading her brood of twelve ducklings around the parking lot.  After snapping a few pictures it was back to gaming.  What could possibly go wrong?

A little while later, on another break from the games SaxyWolf heard a duck in distress.  When he found the mother duck she was frantically quacking and flapping her little wings back and forth over top a storm drain with only a single duckling left beside her.  Disaster had struck.  The ducklings were in danger.

SaxyWolf sprang into action and called up the local animal shelter who told him to call the local police who then transferred him to another police department who said they would call the shelter.  Would the ducklings be saved after being given the run around?  Does hope yet exist in the Inner Sphere?

Well it appears that someone heard the call for help because after about 30 minutes the hotel parking lot was filled with Animal Control, Police, Fire Department, Ambulance and Search and Rescue.

After a concentrated rescue effort the ducklings were saved and returned to their mother who led them away from the dangerous storm drains.

Other Gaming

NJ Con boasts a wide array of games from several eras.  Here are a few pictures from the convention games being played.

One of our projects here at The ScrapYardArmory is to create a system to calculate a Battle Value for RPG characters for use in tactical infantry games.  This only takes into account skills, abilities, and attributes that are directly or semi-related to what happens in combat situations.  For starters, Initiative is an important factor and in order to better understand what affect modifying a character’s initiative has, a fancy pants graph was made to visualize it.

First a little about how we do personal initiative… The standard initiative is 2d6.  Combat Sense makes it 3d6 and ignore the MINimum (or lowest) roll.  Combat Paralysis makes it 3d6 and ignore the MAXimum (or highest) roll.  (Max and Min is sort of habit from working in LibreOffice’s Calc and Excel.)  Furthermore the Tactics/Infantry skill is added to the roll up to a maximum of +6.  The resulting number is displayed using two 6 sided dice adjacent to the character on the map.  The highest initiative a character can have is 12.  The Reflex Attribute breaks ties and where Reflex is the same, the characters act simultaneously (appropriately conducted by the GM).

To see what affect Combat Sense, Combat Paralysis, and the Tactics/Infantry skill have, an analysis was conducted.  The average roll for each was calculated and represented by a bar on the graph below.  The  Combat Sense, Combat Paralysis, and standard initiatives are colored differently so you can see their relationship.  Ignore Max is Combat Paralysis while Ignore Min is Combat Sense.  Then every individual roll’s winning percentage against other rolls was calculated and averaged together to get an average Win % vs 2d6 OR Win % vs All.  Win %’s are the blueish shapes and labeled on the right side of the graph.  The +0 to +6 mods are from the Tactics/Infantry skill bonus to initiative.  The rolls were then ordered by their Average Roll where you can see the standard initiative 2d6+0 averages to 7 as expected.

What I didn’t expect was that only 2 of the Combat Paralysis rolls were lower than 2d6+0, and not really a whole lot lower.  But, the Win % drops off swiftly at the low end.  (Note that 2d6 only wins against itself 44.4% because ties don’t count.)

If you look closely, you will notice that while the Average Roll increases from left to right, the Win % doesn’t always increase.  Ignore Max+3 has an Average Roll a only few hundredths more than Ignore Min+0, but has a slightly lower Win %.  I believe this is due to an increased number of ties (Remember that only wins were counted and a tie is not a win).  You can see this happens again closer to the right, but really neither matters a whole lot since the numbers are still so very close.

You may also have noticed that the colors of the bars are symmetric left to right with Combat Paralysis tending to the left and Combat Sense to the right.

Not too many characters probably end up too far on the right side with high Tactics/Infantry skills, but you can see how they are much more likely to get a high initiative hitting the maximum of 12 more and more often.  With Combat Sense they’ll tend to the right pretty quickly though.  How does this affect our Battle Value?  We’re still not sure as we try to estimate the value of initiative vs other things like weapons, health, etc.

This post is really just meant to share our findings with you so you have a better understanding of the effect your character creation has on Initiative.

Let me start by telling you a little about my situation so you can get an idea of my perspective (Saxywolf).  I like my stories in dead tree format instead of staring at a screen.  I previously have no experience reading ebooks.  I don’t own a Kindle or other special device beyond my Android phone.  I don’t read a whole lot of Battletech fiction (actually I just haven’t read much at all lately).  The last Battletech fiction I read was the 8 novels of The Great Refusal to prepare for our convention games.  I have no real clue what is offered beyond the general description:

Each month we bring you exciting new content, including a mix of exclusive fiction, in-universe new articles, opportunities for interaction with writers, developers, and artists, sneak-peeks at upcoming products, and even scenarios and tracks you can’t get anywhere else!

As I’m writing this portion, I’m still not convinced to purchase a subscription.  I took the plunge anyway just so I could see what the deal was and let you know the details.  I also wanted to get the First Strike: BattleCorps Compilation Vol 2 as a PDF so I could verify some information on an upcoming scenario post.

BattleCorps subscriptions come in three sizes depending on your tolerance for long term commitments.

• 1 Month for $9.95
• 3 Months for $26.95 (saves $2.90 over a monthly subscription)
• 6 Months for $44.95 (saves $14.75 over a monthly subscription)
• Recurring 1 Month is -$1 and recurring 3 Month is -$2.

When ordering the subscription, the page for adding a subscription to the cart has you select a faction and says:

If you do not already have an account, please select a faction below.  Existing accounts will not change faction if a new faction is chosen.

What does that mean and why am I selecting a faction?  Since I’m logged in, it should auto-detect my faction instead of telling me that my choice doesn’t matter.  I realized however that this body of text is not automated.  So, I’m actually not even sure if I had a faction.  There isn’t an option to choose later, but while not immediately obvious you can switch factions.  It isn’t a comprehensive faction list, but it does have the popular ones.  Also, since the faction specific forums are not as active, limiting the choice some helps to avoid joining an inactive forum.

I was pointed to a ClassicBattleTech.com forum with threads announcing releases, but who is going to read a forum like that to figure out what kind of fiction they would have gotten.  Anyway, this is what I got:

• Over 120 products for free download… right away.
• Access to purchase over 440 additional products in ‘Battletech -> BattleCorps’ Fiction
• 5% discount on ALL BattleCorps purchases.
• Access to a faction forum in the BattleCorps forums (Presumably to discuss ‘Mech configurations, tactics, etc.) Not to be confused with the Classic Battletech forums.

A very nice surprise was that it turns out that there is a plethora of previously released products you get for free right away.  There isn’t a list or even a way to figure out what they would be before buying.  But once subscribed, they aren’t too hard to find.  I found 85 free products in my Fiction page right off the bat.  I also found 38 additional free products in the BattleShop under Battletech -> BattleCorps Fiction.  I don’t know why they weren’t automatically added to my fiction page, but I simply sorted the BattleCorps Fiction by price and went down the list adding all the $0.00 products to my cart.  If you too are going to download all the free stuff right away, add the $0.00 products before going down your fiction list and downloading every item so as to avoid having to figure out which you already downloaded.

What exactly does ‘stories from five years of back issues‘ mean?  This seems to be another instance of static text.  It seems I now have access to purchase upwards of 7 years back and all of it is still only for members.

What is the ‘Subscriber Exclusives‘ category?  I don’t see anything in that BattleShop category.  It’s as though I weren’t even logged in.  The message at the top says “Join the Corps” but since I know this body of text is static and not automatically customized for me, why isn’t there also a statement like there is at the top of ‘Battletech -> BattleCorps Fiction’: “If you are a BattleCorps member, but see no fiction on this page, then…”?  I’ve heard talk that at some point there was an exclusive mini, but now the mini has since been made available to non members.

How do subscribers get new products that are released?  Does BattleCorps send a notifications when a new product is released similar to a ‘BattleShop Product Update Alert’ when there is an update to a product previously purchased?  I found an option in the Control Panel to ‘Notify on New Fiction’.  I highly recommend you change this to YES if you sign up so you’ll get a ‘BattleCorps New Fiction Communique’ when something is released.  Otherwise you can periodically check your Fiction page where items with the latest release dates are listed at the top.

How long am I going to have to wait for them to release new products?  Well, there is no comprehensive schedule.  In fact, the only planned date I see is for Exodus Road on Aug 27th a whole 4 months away.  So, I took a look at their release schedule history.  You can see from the chart below that they release products almost every month (Note that I did not include subsequent chapters of a product release if chapters 2 through 10 were released at a later date than chapter 1).  Last year was pretty good and they even seem to be kicking it up a notch this year.

There are dozens of readers, both physical and software, that will read some or all of the dozens of different formats.  Some readers are DRM restricted in that they only allow you to read the ones you buy through that reader.  There are fortunately a bunch of free software readers that will let you read non-DRM ebooks, convert their formats, and help you upload them to any physical reader you may have.  I won’t go into detail (especially since there are so many combinations), but you can read more about readers from your ebook reader’s forums or Google.  Getting the first book to my phone was a bit of a pain, but from here on out at least I have the process down.  It also isn’t so bad reading it on my phone and it’s really nice to have with me whenever I need to kill some time.

Unfortunately, Instead of giving you a download link when viewing your order, there is a link to your fiction page, and then you must search that page to find what you just purchased.  Fortunately it is just one long page so you can do a quick Ctrl+F and type part of the name to find it on the page.  Which reminds me of something else that irks me… You get sent an email when a product you previously purchased has an update for you to download, but instead of linking to the PDF or even just linking to the order that has the download link, they only tell you the order number for you to go find the download link.  On the bright side, there doesn’t appear to be a download time limit on fiction so your collection is always available to you.  I can’t tell you what happens to it if your subscription lapses, let alone if you re-subscribe later.

In case you too thought “Print PDF” would send the ebook to your printer, it’s actually a link to download a version of the product that prints well to hard copy.  It isn’t in color nor does it have fancy graphics in the margin nor any background.  This makes me wonder why the margins in the “PDF” version are so big, though I guess somebody might want to print it in color.  I’m guessing the sidebar graphic is to reduce line length to help make it easier to read (and maybe to increase page count, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt).  It seems kind of random which have “Print PDF” and which have “PDF” (or both).

What about value?  A subscription is $10, $9, and $7.50 per month for the standard 1-, 3-, and 6-month subscriptions respectively.  Here is the current value of the products previously released:

It seems as though you only barely got your monies worth for 2005 through 2008 if you did the 6-month subscription.  However, there have since been a number of products from those years made free (and still exclusive) to subscribers:

If you want to save your money now by not buying a subscription and are willing to wait 3 or more years before buying all the old products, then you’d only have gotten your monies worth for 2006.  All the previous years still would have been cheaper if you had done the 6-month subscription.  If you had the 6-month subscription for 2010 then you would have saved a whopping 64% over purchasing all the products now.  Keep in mind that we are only 1/3 of the way into 2011 and already we’ve seen about as many products released that we would normally see released in an entire year (except 2010).

My biggest problem with BattleCorps and the BattleShop is that it seems to be shooting itself in the foot.  Making it easier to make purchases while clarifying what you are getting for your money are key issues.  I counted 6 products that don’t seem to be available anymore while 4 of them are the beginning parts to stories where additional parts are available.  18 products have slightly different names that make them harder to find counterparts such as “Art of War:  Earth: Part I” and “The Art of War: Earth: Part II” which are not listed anywhere near each other thanks to “The”.  3 items in the BattleCorps fiction seem to have duplicate entries such as “Under Pressure” which has two entries but with different descriptions.  5 of the 16 EPUB novels seem to have duplicates in the BattleCorps Fiction section with different prices.  3 of the BattleCorps Fiction products have a Part 1 released, but no follow up or the subsequent parts are not available.  A bunch of listed release dates aren’t consistent, but that’s not such a big deal.

Still, I’m glad I subscribed and from here on out I plan to be on the 6-month subscription.

If you are still on the edge or even if you decide not to subscribe, head on over to your personalized BattleCorps Fiction page to get a tiny taste of the free stuff you get right away when you subscribe.