ScrapYard Armory

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.

At 1PM today the powers that be held an informal battle chat with the initial topic of the newly released source book, The Blake Documents.

For those of you who missed it, the transcript is here.  I apologize but there is a bit in the middle that I missed due to an odd feature of the chat applet I did not expect.  Additionally, I checked out a bit early.  The chat was winding down anyways and I needed to take care of some personal business.

The powers that be are not good about posting transcripts of special chats, so I hope this helps out those who could not make it.

Here are some of the highlights. ***POTENTIAL SPOILER WARNING*** (First three bullets only…)

• In essence, certain sections of the Blake Documents contain a mix of truths, half-truths, and outright lies.
• The Wolverine – Word of Blake connection is up to interpretation.  It can honestly go either way.
• There will “very likely” be a non-prototype Raptor II in the future without the void-signature equipment.
• The next BattleBlog will be about GenCon and has been submitted.
• Upcoming products this year include Strategic Operations, Handbook: Periphery States, and some special E-Books.
• E-Books will be of two types; Small TROs with new units and equipment, and Turning Points – mini Track-based campaigns based on major battles from the Jihad.
• The first E-Book, a Turning Points taking place on Luthien, is already written and should be available in the next month or so (no promises from Herb on a specific date).
• The Core Rulebooks will not be completed until 2010.

Lots of good stuff in this chat.  I enjoyed the unscripted format as none of the powers that be knew how to use the moderation feature.  There were not many questions about The Blake Documents, so the chat ended up dissolving into a free for all as you might be able to tell from the highlights.

Looking forward to reading the battle blog when it comes out.

A company I have never heard of before, Fat Dragon Games, has released a paper terrain product meant exclusively for the Classic Battletech game.  They even use a CBT miniature in their previews online.  (Kudos to the first comment that identifies the ‘Mech!)

And they expect us to pay $11.99 for it.  The kit includes 8 city buildings, a ‘Mech hanger, a static defense turret, storage tanks, generators, satellite dishes, fire template, and city scape tiles with and without hexes.

I am not sure if they are aware of the wide assortment of card stock terrain templates already available for free courtesy of the CBT community.  See the forum post for more.

If the quality is good enough I am sure there will be a few sales for them in the future.  Honestly I am glad to see third party vendors making products for our little niche of a game.  It is a good sign and positive attention for us.  I’ve bookmarked their site to keep tabs on further releases.

If I were to give them any advice, I would try running with the map tile idea.  Honestly the only competition in that field would be Heavy Metal Map which is not the map making dynamo that I had expected when I purchased it a year ago.

Tabletop Gaming News made several videos with Catalyst Game Labs front and center.  Here are all of the links in one place for easy reference.

Camo Specs First Diorama

Camo Specs Second Diorama

Randall and David Talk About Battletech Releases

Randall and David Talk About Battletech Novels

Randall and David Talk About the Word of Blake Jihad

Battletech received some particular notice and praise in at least two articles.

The BattleTech range continues to expand and the latest set of releases continue to make BattleTech probably the widest game on the market in terms of rules and possible interactions and settings covered by them. Happily the development team continues to follow the “plug and play” mentality that informed earlier rule releases and so gamers don’t need to read and memorize an encyclopedia of rules to use particular technologies or settings in their games.

Second Article. Note that your’s truly provided the fodder for the in article link in the second paragraph!

When I was talking to David at Catalyst Game Labs on Friday he made mention of there being an important product announcement at their booth on Saturday at 10am. I was going there in any case since they were putting up a new BattleTech diorama but sadly I missed the announcement as they made the announcement the previous evening. The announcement was for their new Blake Documents book which provides specifics about the events in the two previous BattleTech Jihad sourcebooks.

This book was a total stealth release. Catalyst didn’t pre-announce it and effectively sprung it on their fans. Kudos really have to be provided to Catalyst for the way in which they provided teasers to gamers at GenCon. At midnight a poster on their forum started posting PDF previews and a figure dressed in Blake robes walked into the BattleTech gaming area in Wasbash 3 tearing pages from the book and screaming about Inner Sphere lies. His bloody robe was later attached to the game cage in the room with a cover of the book attached to it.

It was no surprise that BattleTech fans were lined up at the booth once the show doors opened. I continue to be impressed with the management team at Catalyst but especially with David Stansel-Garner and Randall Bills who have brought a level of professionalism and talent to the BattleTech and Shadowrun lines that fans of these products really deserve.

David and Randall also mentioned a new miniature game they have coming soon that will be a VSF game with giant levitating battleships. I have an interview with them tomorrow and I will be sure to get as much information about it as I can.

Kudos to CGL for putting on an excellent show.  The best part of it all is that everyone who attended and even those that did not were all left wanting more.  GenCon 2009 promises to be an event to remember.  Go ahead and start saving your pennies now.

If you play Battletech there is one place to be in August 2009!

The Camo Specs diarama was updated.  Here are a few shots.  Once again, I’ll be updating this post in the future after I get back from GenCon.  I would have gotten this up sooner if the hotel internet did not go down again.

New Artwork from the Q and A

More on this later, but I just have to share.

The Battle for Gabriel

The Ruins of Gabriel, a long-sought ‘holy grail’ of Chandrasekhar Kurita, has been located.  Can it be claimed?  Join Chandy’s coalition aerospace forces in assaulting the fabled space yard or the side of the Blakist defenders as they fight desperately to keep the Heretics away!

On Saturday, twelve CBT players put their Battlemechs aside and took control of fighter squadrons, dropships, and warships.

As a special treat, Wierdo and Joel had an advance copy of the Strategic Operations advanced aerospace rules.  There is a lot of great stuff in the new rules.  In particular, fighters get rebalanced and capital ships get a few new options to play with.

Due to a few delays in setting up, the game started late.  The players took extra time at the end of the night but were not able to finish the game completely.  Here are the pictures.

In the end, neither side had enough time to make their objectives.  Each side had achieved one each, the one involving certain units surviving.  The coalition held the egde in total damage delivered with one warship kill and a few dropships.

Altogether a very good game.  It was a pleasure to be able to play the advanced rules well before Strategic Ops sees the light of day.

This post will be updated mid day with additional pictures, however, I could not resist posting about a few things right away…

Word of Blake Propaganda

During the CBT events on Friday night, some rather peculiar men in robes walked through the hall screaming about the lies of the Inner Sphere and the truth of the Word.  Normally, this would not have made for an unussual happening, especially since we are at GenCon.  However, one of the robed figures was holding a rather curious document in his hand.

I leave you all to speculate. (I assume there will be a proper announcement anyways in an hour or so…)

Day 1 is in the books.  Due to an internet outage at my hotel, I couldn’t get this post completed until this morning.  Here are a few pics from the first day of gaming.

And now some quick photos from the CSO diaroma.

CBT Open

The first round of the CBT Open was Clan Mechs.  My choice was a Griffin IIC 4 and a Kingfisher H.  I faced off against a Night Gyr Prime and a Fire Falcon H.  The battle started very slowly as both my opponent and I had horrible luck unable to hit any 8s at all.

We took turns trying to bait each other with our lighter ‘Mechs and he was the first to eventually accept the offer.  At the end of that round of combat, his Fire Falcon was barely killed by torso destruction and one additional center torso engine hit.  My light ‘Mech survived.

From there we danced around the board avoiding direct combat until I was able to trap him into a corner and force the issue.  I was initially afraid that the Night Gyr would be able to outpace me for damage, but heat issues prevented him from unleashing all the damage he could.  I lost the Griffin in the same turn I cored out his torso for the win.  Good game.

Something is Coming?

I have a very unsubtantiated rumor that something will be announced today in the Classic Battletech line that may or may not cost around $30.  What could it be?  I’ll keep an eye on the CGL booth today to see if there is anything to this rumor or not.

Not much to report on the first day.  The plane ride was adequate.  Registration almost uneventful.  At least I didn’t have any trouble.

My friend who came with me from Jersey had a bit of a hiccup.  GenCon sent his badge in the mail.  At least that is what they say.  He never got anything in the mail and instead of simply printing him out a new copy, they demanded hat he pay for his badge again.

So the friend just said ‘Ok’ and plans to contest the charge.

GenCon worries that people will get multiple badges by ‘losing’ it over and over.  Ok, sure there are probably some people out there who may try this.  However I don’t think that the cost of alienating honest customers is worth catching the tiny minority of people out to play the system.

Anyways, here are a few uninteresting pictures from the day.  Tomorrow should be much more exciting.

Wednesday morning I will be on a plane heading to Indianapolis for GenCon. I am very excited. It will be my first GenCon and the biggest convention I have ever or possibly will ever be at in my life.

I’ll be playing in a few Classic Battletech games over the course of the day but will also devote a good chunk of time to the exhibition room.

Pictures Uploaded Each Night!

I plan on uploading pictures at the end of every night. For those of you out there who can’t make it to GenCon this year, please leave a comment if you want me to grab a specific picture for you. I will do everything reasonable within my power to answer as many requests as possible.

So let me know! Leave a comment to this post or any of the GenCon posts to come. Looking forward to hearing from you!