BattleTech: A Descent into Madness

 As fellow gamers, I know that you will understand how thin the line between "interest" and "obsession" can be.  I hope that you read the below as a cautionary tale, and take pity on the madness of your fellow gamer. 

Step 1 Buy a gift for a friend and his son.

My friend and his son have birthdays in the same week, and since he is an old school gamer, and his son is detail obsessed kid with a ton of time on his hands, I thought that they were well suited for a Battletech beginner boxed set.  This box comes with some basic rules, a couple of miniature robots (1-/250-1/300 scale), and other ephemera needed to play a few introduction games. Pretty good little box for $20. 

If you are not familiar with Battletech, it is a game of detailed robot combat, set about a thousand years in a dark age feudal future, where MechWarriors are the knights tromping about the galaxy.  Rules are little changed from the mid 80s, so hex based, very detailed, and with a number of additional books you can get to make them even more detailed.  Want to know the salary and healthcare benefits of the guy who fixes the left leg of the robot between battles?  You can!   And probably roleplay out the interaction when you cut his salary and threaten him with deportation if he does not keep up his job too. 

Step 2 Realize that I have some miniatures that could play with them

Long ago, I started on building a few 6mm armies for combat using Dirtside.  I bought a couple of metal Battletech figures from Ironwind, and then stuffed them in a box.  Recalling this, I dug out that box and looked at some pristine figures, still in blister after 16+ years.  Not unusual in this house, but in this case it paid off. 

Step 3 Remember that you have a 3D printer, and print some bases for the miniatures

The metal figures do not come with bases, and their integral bases are small and narrow, so not very useful for trying to stand up the figures.  I knocked out a basic 30mm hex base in Tinkercad, and printed a few of them. 

Step 4 Print some terrain for the gift

$20 seems sort of paltry for a gift for two people (even if it is the entry into a whole universe of fun!), so why not put that printer to work, and make a few trees and buildings to jazz up that starter set a bit?

Then my kid pointed out that more trees were needed to fill up the map, and I did not print any hills... so that part is still ongoing. 

Step 5 Print a few extra figures

Once I got a bit more into the lore, I realized that my metal mechs are out of period for the primary era of the game (3025).  Sort of like fighting a Great War Mark IV with an Abrams.  So I looked on thingiverse, and lo and behold there are Battletech figures on there.  Like a lot of figures.  So I selected a few likely sorts and printed them out.  At 3-6 hours each, printing is sort of a commitment, but not very much because what else is my printer doing, and they cost like $0.50 each. 

Shoddy primed picture of a Stinger, Whitworth, Hermes I, Assassin, Phoenix Hawk, and an Orion

Step 6 Start reading Sarna.net

Like Wikipedia, but for the Battletech universe.  Did you know that each mech, of which there are hundreds, has many variants each? Each with their own fictional history, manufacturers of parts, and canonical appearances?   Did you know that you can look at each planet of the galaxy and track its political affiliation and those of nearby systems with maps? Sarna is dangerous for obsessive nerds.  Many hours were lost. 

Step 7 Obsessively reread the Battle reports of 1000 Foot General    

Over at 1000 Foot General, John played a series of Battletech games in a campaign with his kid, and they are awesome.  He also has some house rules to smooth out the game play and campaign a bit, so that not every game devolves into last man standing bloodbaths.  Just some of them. 

Step 8 Print more figures

The danger of reading Sarna and learning about all of the cool mechs that exist, and reading 1000 Foot General, and seeing different mech types do cool stuff is that you then start to want more mechs...

Commando, Locust, Shadow Hawk, and a Jenner

Step 9 Make a few digital kitbash conversions

JVN-10A

Remember how in step 6 I mentioned that there are a lot of variants?  Well some are more complicated, but others are basically weapon swaps, like this Javelin-10A above, which trades out two short range missile launchers for one large long range one.  I took two models of the Javelin, cut the arms off (digitally) and reposed them, re-sculpted the chest plate, and then dropped in the larger long range missile launcher.  I also made a ruined base for the robot to stand on, because why not?

Step 10 Obsessively collect all the STLs available to the point that you have to make a spreadsheet to track everything

Currently 64 variants deep, not counting pose variants for common 'mechs. Still looking for good models for ~17 more.

Step 11 Make the spreadsheet more complicated

Now with alternate era mechs, more variants, tonnage, battlefield role and more information...

Step 12 Consider digitally sculpting missing figures

Can not find a good Panther Mech?  Well, it sort of looks like a Wolfhound with more armor and a different gun...

...still not have played a game

I do have some painted figures though! 

At 30-60mm tall, they paint up fast. 

Metal Cerberus assault Mech

Printed Javelin-10 light Mech

More madness to come.

Brigade Models January Sale

I have mentioned my love for Brigade Models previously, when I missed their 25th anniversary sale, and I am going to do it again to mention their January New Year's sale, which is 15% off everything in the store that they make.  With the pound at $1.65 USD this is a great deal, particularly as Brigade Models is VAT listed.

I will not be able to take advantage of this sale, as I have other fish to fry so to speak, but you should.

Here are some of my painted Brigade castings (from long ago):

Hmm, I really should get back to 6mm sometime, and finish off these forces.

Ogre Kickstarter

You may recall that last year, I had a post about 6th Edition Ogre (the game with giant robotic death tanks, not one about dim witted large fellows with clubs).  It was supposed to come out in the fall of 2011, but funding was apparently an issue, and it has not happened yet.

Here is a reminder of what it is going to look like:

Well, now that Kickstarter is apparently a thing (or is trying to be), Steve Jackson games is using it to help get their 6th edition of the game off the ground, and ideally to include extras.  They have already reached the first funding goal, so the game will be able to go forward, the only question remaining, is what extras will it contain?  With 29 days to go, they should be able to get at least a few more bucks...

1/285 Cityscape

This morning on TGN, I saw GameCraft, a company I had previously never heard of, has released a new set of laser cut mat board building ruins in 1/285. [which, along with 1/300,  is often called 6mm]

I must admit, they look pretty attractive:

They do have the issue of course of being pre-contemporary ruins, but that might not matter if you are doing WWII, or some sort of primitive sci-fi future (such as 40k, where all technologies that are not weapons related seem to be 1940s standard).  I have used heavy card stock terrain before, which is similar to mat board, and it worked pretty well.  I think that if you based these models that they could last quite a while.  However, $20 does seem a bit much for card, even in this quantity.  Their resin kit for $13 seems like a better deal in some regards, and the resin would be more durable as well. Still, more terrain options is good.

Extremely Topical

Osama Bin Laden's compound in 1/285.  I think I would have shot for 15mm myself (~1/100), since it seems more game-able in a larger size. Still, speedy work there.

Also, I have jury duty this week, so I am both away from the computer, and reading more than usual.  Got through most of Path of the Warriortoday.  We will see what happens tomorrow, when the trial starts.

Ogre 6th edition

No, not the kind with a club and dim wits.

The kind that is a massive robotic death machine.  Originally released in 1977 as a microgame, Ogre has been popular for a while.  It features one of the aforementioned massive robotic death machines fighting against a whole army of weaker squishy regular tanks and their support elements.  I became aware of the game because there is a 6mm miniatures version, with several interesting units that I have some vague idea of eventually incorporating in my games.

Now, Steve Jackson Games is going to release a 6th edition of the game, with many of the expansions included, constructable standup buildings and Ogres, and anticipated retail price of $100.

Below is a picture I snipped from the PDF, showing the constructable Ogres.  Each of those hexes is 1.5 inches, so these suckers are big! [it also looks like someone has seen the WizKids Star Wars Game]  Also seems to have some pretty classic map graphics.

here is a link to a retailer PDF.  Anyway, pretty excited about this, although I am sure it would have been better if it had miniatures... not sure how that would have fit in the box though, if it really has as many units as indicated.

Battletech 25th Anniversary

I have been interested in Battletech for a long time, before MechWarrior, before the clicky figures, before I got some figures for Dirtside II.  I am not even sure how I heard about the game in the first place, but it must have been in some game store I visited, or online or something.  A freind of mine had some of the RPG books and novels, so it may have been from that. [that would have been in 1996 or so]

Anyway, with the re-release of the boxed game, and the Total Warfare hardbound rulebook, my interest hit the level that I put them on my Amazon list. [which is absurdly long and comprehensive].  I thought that at some point, I would buy the boxed set, see how I liked playing with the 'mechs in the box, buy a few more units and have a little side game with my Dirtside stuff, and that would be it.  I read the basic rules online, I looked over camospecs [ok, looked at everything on camospecs], I got a little more interested. Then the box went out of print.

Now, finally, the 25th Anniversary boxed set is close to release.  Only two years late!

Maybe this time I should get it, instead of wishlisting it forever.