Everyone Loves Hot Mechs (Pt.II)

I had picked up the 35th anniversary started box, mainly because the Unseen were back with really great new minis. I was going to paint up a new Black Widow Company to replace my long lost metal figs just for fun. Then the came the Clans Kickstarter, and hoo-boy the flood gates of awesome mech sculpts were opened. 

Battletech had always had an art problem. I'll not go into it here, as there are many entertaining videos about the '80s and '90s BattleTech art on YouTube. But wow, there was some seriously bad art and mech designs. Add that to the weirdly anemic metal mech miniatures and new players stayed away in droves. 

But now: super clean art, great "realistic" mech designs with well done plastic minis. Home Run.

The kicker for me was Alpha Strike. BattleTech Total Warfare is a wargame, Alpha Strike is a miniatures game. Subtle, but important difference. I enjoy the scale of Alpha Strike more, not to mention the much smoother, faster gameplay. So it's back to the 31st/32nd century for me.

As far as the "everybody is leaving 40K for BattleTech now!" goes, simple answer is no, of course not.

Did some? Sure. I don't know anyone who completely gave up 40K because of BattleTech. (Some of our group gave up 40K for different reasons) 

I still play 40K, I just started playing Battletech again. I love both franchises. Both games (and parent companies) have problems with rules and business issues. Both give me different, good, sci-fi gaming experiences. Battletech is slightly easier to get into, but still has this kinda obtuse wall of Lore that can dissuade new players. Alpha Strike is by far the more teachable rules set, and the box set is a fantastic starting point. 

I'm very pleased to see BattleTech make a comeback on the tabletop. I hope they can sustain it.
 

Go Roll Some Dice

Enjoy the Mech Renaissance

New Year, New-ish Content

 

Happy new year. Let's see how this one goes. In blog plans, I will cover a wider range of games. More Indy (although I'm not quite sure what that means anymore) and small press titles.

Specifically I am going to try Galactic Heroes, Stargrave, and Five Parsecs from Home to start with.

Galactic Heroes primarily because I have a bunch of nicely painted Star Wars Imperial Assault minis just gathering dust. Plus they do make a not-40k expansion as well.

Trying new things will be the focus of this year. Because why not?

Go Roll Some Dice

Maybe With More (Or Less) Than Six Sides

Let's Talk About Mechs, Baby! (Part I)

 

Ahhh Battletech. I picked up Battledroids from my local comic book store back in '84. We had a good time with it, and picked two or three of the twin pack of plastic 1/144 scale mechs. A name change and  year later second edition was released. This was the core of modern Battletech. I played it obsessively for the next five years or so. Loved the expanding lore; the Clan invasion was one of the highlights of gaming. 

Alas Battletech's super detailed game system was a two edged sword. It felt great tracking all the damage on a full 8.5x11 sheet (per mech) you could really fine tune the tactics to the mech(s) you had on the table.

But...It was a slow game. Like, a really slow game.

It took a few hours to fight a 4 v 4 battle with experienced players. Any more than that and your whole weekend is gone. Which also meant there was a real shallow pool of viable scenarios, mostly just matching different types of Lances against each other. 

I guess it is a hyper detailed skirmish game? 

Still, I loved it. Painted a couple of companies worth of metal mechs, read all the novels, tried some of the variant games (Aerotech, Succession Wars, Battleforce, et al) still my number of plays kept going down. Then three things happened in the early '90s: The amount of good Battletech product releases approached zero, Good PC video games arrived and, of course, Warhammer 40K.  More specifically  Adeptus Titanicus, a giant mech game with (ahem) truly epic battles. That much pretty ended my tabletop Battletech gaming.

However, I never totally abandoned Battletech. I still picked up the novels (such as they were at the time) Played Mechwarrior 2, 3, and 4 a whole lot, and hoped for some kind of makeover of the game system.

Then came the Kickstarter...  To be continued! 

 

Go Roll Some Dice

Giant Robots Make Everything Better

New Paints for Painting

As I've said many times before, I'm an average painter. I do think I've done up a few models that verge on really good, but for the most part I'm painting for the battlefield. My skill has improved over the last five years or so, and I'm pretty happy of where I am at. But that doesn't mean I take don't take small steps forwards, and try new things. 

Waaay back in the early '80s when I was building plastic model airplanes I was painting out of the Testors Model Master paint jars, and it was good.

So it wasn't much of a culture shift when I got into miniature wargaming. I gradually shifted over to Citadel paint pots, mostly for the more appropriate color range, but the water wash-up was new and awesomely better than cleaning my brushes with paint thinner.

The dropper bottles came onto the scene, but I never really cared for them, mostly because I didn't use a pallet, and it just kinda seemed like extra steps for no good reason.

Well, I've slowly come around. I really do like the new Army Painter Fanatic line of paints, and I see the usefulness of the dropper bottles as well. Now that I am expanding with some non-40K minis, the available colors matter as well again. So now I have a mixed arsenal of pots and bottles with a truly wide range of colors to pick from. There are many choices out there, don't limit yourself just because you haven't tried something.

Go Sling Some Paint

Fun Comes in Many Shapes