ScrapYard Armory

UPDATE: January 27, 2009

From information gathered from the Classic Battletech forums it seems that I was a bit lucky when I made my first order.  An order from Hotz may take anywhere from two weeks to three months based on the experiences of other forum goers.  I’ll be sure to post when I do receive my new mat.

I’m glad he didn’t go walkabout with our money, but it is a bit distressing that Eric is not making every effort to keep in touch with his customers.

Bottom line, if you can afford the wait, Hotz Mats are a great gaming investment.  I love my current mat.  I wish it were possible to buy them without the hassle.

UPDATE: January 26th, 2009

I made contact with Eric and he is simply running behind due to the high volume of snow and extreme cold in his part of Canada.  Here are a few ways to get in touch with Eric if you are having difficulty reaching him.

Email:

whitewash.city@gmail.com

erichotz@shaw.ca

erichotz@direct.ca

Phone:

(604) 619 – 6925

ORIGINAL POST:

I ordered a new mat from Hotz Artworks around December.  It has been over a month now and I haven’t been able to make contact with Eric over email.

I have called his listed number (left a voice mail) and sent additional emails to two known email addresses.

I am not about to jump to the conclusion that he is ripping anyone off just yet.  There is the chance that something could have happened to him and he is unable to make good on his current game mat orders.  I know of at least one other person from the Classic Battletech forums who has an order in limbo.

Until I can confirm just what is happening with Hotz Artworks, DO NOT PLACE AN ORDER ON HIS WEBSITE.

I will keep this post updated with the latest and greatest as information becomes available.  I love my current mat from Hotz.  I hope that everything is well and this is all just a misunderstanding.

What a week!  There is lots going on in the Classic Battletech world.  In the event that you missed one, two, or possibly more bits of news, here is a rundown of what’s been going on.

Changes at Iron Wind Metals

• The deadline for Figure Archiving has been extended to Friday, February 15th.

Now is your chance to get those soon to be expensive archive figures from IWM.  The list is huge and includes a lot of figures you may not expect to have been at the bottom of the sales list, including protomechs, battle armor, VTOLs, and more than a few good looking ‘Mechs.

• All IWM orders are now shipping with delivery confirmation.

Honestly, I don’t know why they ever didn’t use confirmation on all orders.  I’ve done a bit of eBay selling in my day, and it is just common sense to list in your auction “Delivery Confirmation Included” just to keep away the riff raff.  Good move for IWM.

New Products from Catalyst

• Jihad Turning Points New Avalon was released.

You can read my review of Jihad Turning Points: New Avalon.

• Record Sheets: Project Phoenix Upgrade is released in multiple formats.

As an added surprise from the developers at Catalyst, we now have updated Project Phoenix record sheets using the new Total War format.  Did you know that all Total War style record sheets produced to date have been done by hand?  Can you imagine the Catalyst team hunched over using their PDF editor and putting each and every individual armor bubble in it’s place?  Well, no longer.  In the credits and introduction Randall mentions a new application for record sheet construction.

Also, RS:PPU is being released in a brand new way.  You can buy the entire work for around $10, or buy a faction specific set of record sheets for under $2 (price depends on the faction).

You can get a free preview of the Project Phoenix Upgrade.

Classic Battletech Forums in Danger

You’ve probably noticed the symptoms if you’ve been lurking around.  The double and sometimes triple posts.  The connection errors.  The long lag.  It is official now.  Death Shadow has announced that there is something rotten in Denmark and the forums may have to be wiped if a backup cannot be found and installed.

The latest and greatest is that the forums have been saved for now, but a purge of old posts is coming soon regardless.  Time to back up any old posts you are fond of.

A New Editor Joins the Scrapyard

I am pleased to announce that ScrapYard commenter and friend SaxyWolf has joined the scrapyard as a contributing editor.  It will be SaxyWolf’s job to tidy up the jibberish I sometimes manage to write as well as make contributions in the form of playtesting and post writing.

I’m looking forward to working with SaxyWolf with the site producing more great content and more importantly, playing great games.

Somehow, I missed this one completely.  I can’t say how as I frequent the board enough that I should have caught any announcement.  Regardless, the developers have been getting really good about polishing up the transcript and posting it for all.

The transcript for this chat is already available, get it here.

The Rundown

• Topps has removed Battletech and Shadowrun from negotiations.

Due to the immense value of the Shadowrun and BattleTech properties, Topps has made the decision to withdrawal those properties from the sale.

• The next release of Jihad Turning Points is New Avalon, followed by Tharkad and then two yet to be determined locations.
• Maps are coming back into print under the Catalyst aegis.  They will most likely be combined with some sort of additional rules or scenarios.  No mention of the map tiles though.
• A special 25th Anniversary product is in the works and an announcement should be coming soon.
• More Historicals source books are in the long term horizon but additional StarterBooks less so.

I’m a bit disapointed in Topps decision.  However, they are most likely looking at things from a business perspective.  The Battletech and Shadowrun properties are far more valuable for them to hold and collect payments from Catalyst and Steam and Tinker.

So, for the time being anyways, status quo.

Solaris Skunk Werks is a new and exciting open source program for Classic Battletech.  SSW is a Battlemech designer and record sheet printer.  Here is the lowdown.

• It’s based on Java, so it’s platform independent (Mac users rejoice!)
• Features support for most Tactical Operations gear, more added every week
• Omni-Mechs are stored as a single file, easy toggling between configurations
• The main developer LostInSpace is a great guy, and he codes fast!

Check it out the latest stable release from SourceForge if you have the time.  You will be glad you did.

Solaris Skunk Werks Quick Links

SourceForge Project

CBT Forum Post

Program Website

About Those Developers

I am pleased to announce that I have joined the group of developers working on Solaris Skunk Werks.  I’ve been looking over the code and have begun the process of inputting TacOps weapons.  I’m already having fun adding a little bit to the code each night and contributing to a program I believe is sorely needed by lots of Classic Battletech players.

My thanks go to LostInSpace for letting me help out.

Remember that painting competition I wrote about earlier?

Well it seems myself and one other person submitted entries.  Ouch.

The competition sponsor was kind enough to offer us a miniature of our choice just for participating.  I politely declined.  I’d rather that miniature be used in the next contest when there is a good turnout.  Something tells me that will be sooner rather than later.

Something to Think About

See this miniature?  It was the very first miniature I ever painted.  Notice the grainy texture all around?  The obvious brush stroke on the right torso?  The far too light to be noticed cockpit color?

The thing is nobody is perfect.  Everyone has to start from somewhere.  I’ve much improved since this humble little Spider.  Regardless, I’ve always felt a sense of pride when I was able to plop one of my own painted miniatures on the tabletop to play a game.  Even if the painting wasn’t perfect, it was mine.

You can only get better if you practice.  And now is the perfect opportunity.  You see, that painting competition is going to be restarted.  Clean slate people.  Anyone can enter with any Battletech miniature you can paint up between now and the contest deadline.  Now is as good a time as any to work on those painting skills.

2008 has been a great year filled with great games, great conventions, and great comments! Here is the short list of my top commentators.

1. Adam Easykill
2. Quigs
3. Saxywolf

There are no prizes or anything like that so don’t get too excited.  I just wanted to let you all know that I appreciate your feedback and welcome much more in the future.

Thanks to all of my readers this year.  I hope to raise the bar in 2009 and provide more terrific original content for the Classic Battletech game.  I’ve got a hobby list about a mile long and I’ve no intentions of slowing down.

Cheers to you and yours this Holiday season!

A rather curious and very new looking weblog/newsletter gathered up some sound bites from Catalyst Game Labs staff (Adam Jury alone it seems) and put out a PDF interview.

The PDF is here.

Nothing notable on the Classic Battletech front to report.  This was not so much an interview as a general overview of the company.

The slew of other games in the works were mentioned including one that I had not heard of before.  While I will ultimately stay away from Eclipse Phase (I’ve never been much of a role player) quick and funny games like Paparazzi and Ooze the Cook sound intriguing enough to give it a shot.

I made a point to play a demo of Paparazzi at GenCon this year and I have to say I was impressed.  Shame it isn’t going to make it to shelves before the holiday shopping season.

This just in from a little birdie whispering in my ear.

Preparing TRO3075 and TRO3050U for reprints…always good when you get to reprint a book, especially as quick as we’re reprinting 3075. rnb

Not bad at all.  It is good to see product moving.

I’m not about to say everything Catalyst touches turns to gold.  If they do come out with product I don’t like, I certainly won’t buy it anyways on principle. That said, Catalyst has some significant challenges ahead of itself, especially if they wrangle the intellectual property rights in the near future.

However, if we want Classic Battletech to be around for another 25 years, the company needs to make money.  Good money.  I’ve been a player of far too many great games (Deadlands: Doomtown, MageKnight, and now Mechwarrior) that bit the dust because the owners couldn’t make any money off of them.

This is a step in the right direction.  Here’s hoping for a bright future.

The GeekDad blog has been popping out gift guides for the holiday season.  In it’s fifth take on the subject, they tackled game suitable for Dad and Kids to share.  Nothing says “tis the season‘ like getting a gift you and your children can share.  Family is what it’s all about after all.

Here is the post.  And the excerpt:

The ultimate giant robot board game. This starter set comes with plastic robot figures, quick start rules, and advanced rules. With over 20 years of background material, this game can get as complicated as you can handle!

Not a bad plug at all.

Obviously, this particular kind of gift is more for a Father and Son, just like the Nerf Gun set, Legos, and the Arduino microprocessor Starter Kit.

What’s on your Holiday wish list?  I’m hoping for Stratigic Ops PDF.  We can hope right?

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.