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Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
I had like 20 dollars in Amazon promo credit, so I figured that zero bux for this book wouldn't make me feel disappointed, even considering that I've never liked this Confederate apologist hack's other Battletech novels. But I'm about 200 pages into this 590-odd page novel, and I'm finding it a pretty major slog to get through, even compared to his other lovely books. While some BT and MWDA novels can be bad and/or boring, it seems that Hour of the Wolf takes this to whole new level. Some fans will complain about BT books like Star Lord being bad, but at least I can remember the character names and events in that novel. And while most BT/MWDA book characters are paper-thin, HotW is somehow feeling like even thinner than that. Also, I'm not expecting amazing prose in BT/MWDA novels, but I just read a paragraph where the same word, "devastating", is used in every sentence of a battle's description, so holy poo poo why.

As a side note Hour of the Wolf has an good quality, albeit an indirect one, in that it increased my enjoyment of PoptartNinja's writing (and characters) in their LP thread even higher. PTN, your writing should be something enjoyed by the BT community at large, instead of BLP and this poo poo-rear end book.

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Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
I legit really liked Wolf Hunters and the Free Worlds League reformed novels in the MWDA line. Marik (and pretend Marik) shenanigans are fun!

From earlier HotW discussion of the colossal loving hypocrisy of Alaric and Malvina re:Republic tactics

Why even bother with "dishonorable blah blah" bullshit when Clan elementals literally have a Headhunter configuration, and the Clans really enjoy blowing apart bunkers. Also, just lol at "amazing" characters that legitimately are angry at the Republic (not just showboating for political optics) for their mission when one is warcrimes r us and even the comparatively mellower Alaric loving killed tons of surrendered forces.

gently caress this Confederate apologist hack, and gently caress this book

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.

Crazy Joe Wilson posted:

That's the thing though, he has written really good novels. Target of Opportunity and Surrender Your Dreams are two of my favorite, and they're top tier for the Dark Age fiction line.

Lol this post just made me realize something about HotW and these two MWDA books, and then back through Pardoe's other books.

Target of Opportunity: bannson raiders bad guys get the Republic and Spirit Cats at each other's throats with a false flag attack.

Surrender Your Dreams is substantially about a false flag attack on the new FWL.

Hour of the Wolf's Headhunter attack bullshit features the Republic painting up the headhunters in Clan Wolf and Jade Falcon colors, yet more false flags

Roll back to older BT books.

Impetus of War, "captain awesome" Jaffray uses a false flag attack to get the Nova Cats to help out against the Jags.

Highlander Gambit, bad guy AFFC pulls a false flag attack between Highlander and AFFC units. Though my memory is hazy might misremember that one, and I legitimately don't remember anything from his Stonewall Jackson wank books but I'm guessing there's yet another false flag in there

Guess BLP really liked Comstar trying to blow up the NAIS in the 4SW

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.

Carbolic posted:

Can they please figure out a way to present a faction or character as a dangerous and/or bad guy without making them commit war crimes?

It's just tiring at this point, and just smacks of "look how grown-up our franchise is". It also handily undermines the intended horror of characters like Malvina when instead of being an anomaly like Victor Milan seemed to intend with her introduction, she's just one of a horde of assholes willing to warcrimes at the drop of the hat.

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.

PoptartsNinja posted:

I forgot how embarrassing spooky the Republic of the Sphere's official color schemes were.


Edit:

Settled on Stone's Defenders because they've got the least bad skeleton motif.

Spoopy Halloween skeletons are the best and never embarrassing :colbert:

Out of curiosity, why not use one of the line regiment schemes or the Republic Standing Guard instead of the Stone's Brigades?

Also I one hundred percent agree with BLP's lackluster bullshit novels being responsible for my "meh" at ilClan at this point.

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
I think that's one of the "off screen" elements in BT fiction. In Heir to the Dragon, the second best BT novel, when Theodore Kurita hits Vega in the counterattack against Steiner forces he has his mech regiment, but there's mentioned like 10 regiments of infantry and armor. So in my head whenever we see the mech fights on the board, there's a lot of people dying in mass battles away from these critical small engagements that are the "true" focus since mechs are used for the truly important battles. Well as far as the nobility are concerned, anyway.

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
That’s a really cool trick, thanks for posting it.

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
So I've started to pick up BT miniatures where I can. Out of curiosity, are the new Forcepacks from the Kickstarter going to be sold in stores eventually, or was that just a one-time thing for the KS?

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
So I managed to pick up some BT goodies over Christmas, including a good haul of minis. I'm pretty excited to get into starting an Alpha Strike group with my tabletop friends at some point.

I'm completely new to the whole painting miniatures thing. Any recommendations for paint brands or tips for getting started?

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
Hey thanks for the pointers everybody, especially PTN. I'm looking forward to getting started on some of these minis this weekend

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
So I painted up my first lance of minis yesterday. Started with the Archer, then the Blackjack, Timber Wolf, and finished with the Rifleman. The Archer kind of went gloppier in parts on the torso than I originally wanted, and under the flash I see where the weapons can be touched up, but I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

on to more lances, gotta fill out the rest of the company!


Click here for the full 1920x1440 image

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
Been reading through Tamar Rising and I have to say despite my dislike of ilClan's handling of that core conflict with the Republic, Wolves, and Jade Falcons (mainly because Hour of the Wolf novel was garbage), this new area of space and era of conflict is pretty neat as this sourcebook presents it. I hope that other regions will have similar shakeups in the ilClan era in future sourcebooks. I'm also curious if there's going to be any remnant of the Republic of the Sphere going forward, like a Republic in Exile along the lines of these fiefdoms in Tamar space, but that comes from me and one other player in my group still flying that flag so I'm biased :toot:

Of course if it comes to it, it's nice to be able to play loosey goosey with the Battletech setting and just slot in whatever for the games I've been having with my friends. One of my buddies likes playing his Com Guards force, and they're dead as a doornail in the canon current era but nbd ComStar lives on for our campaigns.

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.

Defiance Industries posted:

I think the idea of a Republic in Exile died when Stone killed Redburn and told all their troops they were coming to die on Terra

Yeah you're probably right about that one.

I guess it's just a little frustration with the run up to ilClan on my part. I didn't have a problem with the Republic losing, they were in the crosshairs of a bunch of factions with Terra as the goal, I had a big problem with Hour of the Wolf all of a sudden deciding to pull entire regiments out for the "big showdown" just to have them die offscreen. It all just seemed perfunctory.

All told if CGL just wanted to shitcan the Republic, why bother with the Fortress Republic and what followed through 3145 to 3150? Why not just go "hey after they collapsed into Prefecture X it fell apart at the seams almost immediately"?

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.

Defiance Industries posted:

I think their problem is the other way around, they get an idea and stick with it no matter how badly it is received. The whole ilClan thing is an absolute narrative failure that they had seven years to try and address and just didn't. Instead they used the same outline that they had Ben Rome write in like 2010 and changed it just enough that he couldn't sue them.

:yeah:

And it might just be me, but sometimes it feels like folks in the decision making circle get flustered that randos on the internet guess their twists or resolutions to mysteries, even if it's been signposted super hard.

I remember playing MWDA in high school and finding out that Battletech was still around. I picked up some novels and started reading Patriots and Tyrants. So with the Devlin Stone leading a resistance against the WOB after being freed from a camp I thought it tracked pretty well to Arthur Steiner-Davion being imprisoned by the WOB at the end of that book. But instead I guess the actual result was Arthur never showing up in anything ever again and Devlin Stone is just a guy who got programmed to be the bestest at everything :confuoot:

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.

General Battuta posted:

I like all the crazy Word of Blake manny dominos stuff and the Stone conspiracy knot and the Republic with all its super duper messed up contingency plans. Maybe I'm the only one, but I'd love to have more of it, it felt like the first real 'new' material in the setting since the Clan Invasion (rather than just endless variations of 'Clans menace, IS powers unite, unscrupulous IS politicians take advantage'). All the canon rumors are cool.

:hfive: Stone conspiracy knot buddy.

Some of my favorite BT sourcebooks are things like Interstellar Players or the Jihad Hot Spots format, I like having a lot more of the rumors stuff too.

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
Funny that it went from "we couldn't let Victor and the gang save the inner sphere again" to it feeling like everybody in HOTW kept saying over and over that Alaric "VSD incest baby" Ward was the only hope to save humanity from the edgelord queen Malvina

Holybat fucked around with this message at 07:05 on Jan 21, 2022

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.

Crazy Joe Wilson posted:

Redburn didn't get killed when Stone absorbed the Republic in Exile, he grudgingly fought on Terra and did that super-secret false flag super dumb assassination mission against both Ward and Malvina that got figured out in like 5 minutes.

Was it really that hard to just target ONE enemy, so that it was more believable?

Fortress Republic was a decision made by Wizkids in 2004 or 05, 2013-2015 CGL decided to keep going with the Republic in Fortress Republic. I think they just wanted to give false hope to ROTS fans and to make Clan Wolf "Work" for Terra, which they really... didn't.

Except for the part where Alaric invited Malvina to Terra and f*cked up Stone's plans ,because that actually was sort of clever. Even if it was handled poorly.

The way that everyone, even ROTS POWs kept saying "oh yeah Alaric is better" was just so, so stupid. And barely even accurate. Alaric's got plenty of his own atrocities and executions under his record. He killed thousands of civilians in the FWL and massacred the Silver Eagles when they tried to surrender. If we could've just had a few character say "Clan is Clan, Malvina's just more crazy, they're both bad". No instead we get Wolf's Dragoons, ROTS, and others all thinking "Oh man we need Alaric he's a way better alternative to Malvina."

In unrelated news, my Shrapnel submission moved up 5 queue positions, so :toot:

Yeah you've hit upon the grossest part of the "Alaric is so awesome" bit to me. Being a fan of the FWL MWDA novels I knew him as a shitlord who wantonly kills when the mood strikes him, like you pointed out with the Silver Hawk Irregulars and FWL civvies. Then with some of the runup to ilClan like Alaric's character being retconed in Bonfire of Worlds as this "wow he did all this without civilian casualties" bullshit in his battle with Anastasia Kerensky were we all supposed to go better late than never re: stop doing warcrimes for Alaric?

Edit: Also I mentioned it before but BLP constantly going to false flags as a core conflict generator in his garbage books makes me assume he's a 9/11 truther on top of being a confederate apologist chud.

Holybat fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Jan 22, 2022

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.

TheDiceMustRoll posted:

This post is not formatted well, so tl;dr: What level of quality on a gradient scale of both Battletech and Clan-specific Battletech novels is forever faithful and can you suggest ones that are uhhh better, much better than that?

I don't know how you feel about getting into the Dark Age era, but a pretty fun standalone in my opinion is Wolf Hunters, which follows the breakup of a faction in that time and follows some of the Steel Wolf expatriates into new careers in small merc units, and one of them who forms a warrior co-op on Solaris.

A side note but a factor I enjoy in any BT stories is when a writer sets any of the action on worlds that aren't just Earth like, and Wolf Hunters also has that going for it.

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
So I've been reading through MechWarrior 1st Edition and the difference in feel between what was presented in that book vs everything that followed is really stark and I wouldn't mind the franchise starting from that sort of base, honestly.

There was stuff that really underlined the lovely feudal nature of the Successor States in the late Succession Wars. Like how House Liao is really big on the Hapsburg routine, marrying into and consolidating their space with like a third of Capellan worlds featuring a Liao cousin that married the local noble and brought them into the fold. Or how the Davions are constantly dealing with serious internal strife from basically having three equally powerful dukes on New Avalon, Robinson, and New Syrtis eyeballing each other and their levied military forces. Additionally, the primacy of the Davions in the Federated Suns is secured mainly by the old Star League naming the Dukes of New Avalon as the SL rep, so that's the core of their "legitimacy".

But generally the feeling of each of the Successor States is less "space Japan" or "Space Germany" etc. but does lean more into how these are the broken ruins of civilization centuries removed from a contemporary viewpoint, and aren't really analogues to 20th century nations.

Finally, the original Free Worlds League insignia is baller, and it's dumb how they just reduced it to the Marik Eagle later on.

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
Seeing this discussion does make me think that there's a big missed opportunity in the setting to have House forces being different in their organization, like from Great House to Great House. I don't think players need a Field Manual series to give a breakdown of all military's regiments that don't matter in a random novel anyway because the writer will just pull units out of their asses (see: Hour of the Wolf), but why not a lighter book that shows different organizational schemes? Like you keep some notable regiments for fluff/flavor text, but leave the rest more vague. Then with these more broad Field Manuals, you get descriptions of how some House regiments might be very very strict on organizing in four mech lances, but other Houses found that they worked better in 5 mech lance/platoons and four platoon companies, etc etc. This obviously will extend to mercenary companies, where the sky is the limit for weird-rear end organizations. This is Dark Age era, but I did like in the MWDA novel Wolf Hunters, Anastasia Kerensky just went whole hog with not having an officer corps outside of her as the Alpha of the Wolf Hunters. Does it make sense from an even remotely realistic military standpoint? gently caress no, but it's fun flavor imho

In the fiction you could have something pointing to the old Star League days because of the influence of the SLDF the armies of that time were a lot more standardized but after the First Succession War and the massive depletion of reserves and the death of so many troops from decades of conflict, by the Second Succession War you start to see a lot of "drift" from the old SLDF standard across different fronts. That can tie in with some "modern" regiments that hold heritage from the SLDF like the Eridani Light Horse being very strict in adhering to SLDF standard TO&E. Hell, even the concept of "regiments" could be reworked. Some regiments like the personal Household Guards of a Great House lord could be many battalions in strength, but other local nobles might have a "regiment" that's a few battered companies' worth of forces.

I'm biased because I think the Battletech universe gets more interesting with smaller regional conflicts like the PC game, and I have to say that I found the Tamar Rising book fun because I like the idea of a more fragmented Inner Sphere, so maybe this slots in better in my head.

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
Out of the many dumb things in that book, CJF neo black watch is pretty up there.

And yeah the devs jangling keys of faction changes when they have things like Clan Nova Cat stomping the Ghost Bears in a real world naval battle that (supposedly) affected canon, except lol nope, now in this sidebar CGB forced a tie. but now CGB respect the Nova Cats totally believe me oh NVM they warcrime NC warriors and civilians in the next book :banjo:

Edit: agreed I thought Tamar Rising was fun, I liked the CJF merchant empire forming in the remnant, and surprisingly I'm looking forward to Empire Alone and I hope that actually puts the FWL in the spotlight for awhile

Holybat fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Feb 11, 2022

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
The grog thing reminded me of how I got into the game. I'm a weird case of having some familiarity with Battletech as a franchise, first through MechWarrior 2 on PC but never playing the OG boardgame at all. I picked up a copy of TRO 3055 from a Media Play on a sale and got into the fiction. That same Media Play was where I bought my first BT novel, Wolves On The Border and from there I got hooked into the fluff but there weren't any BT mini players around for me at the time.

so it ended up the first miniature game I really played a lot was MWDA since a lot of players I knew personally had come over from Heroclix and Mage Knight. So I wander over to the official forums and see grog posts about DORK AGE (got em) and just had to laugh.

In the current day, a number of my old MWDA player buddies and I are now into Alpha Strike for our game times and I'm so glad there's new relatively cheap plastic minis.

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
Well I guess I know what I'm setting aside some of my tax return for now :getin:

Glad they're coming out with more of the lance boxes and putting them in stores.

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.

SirFozzie posted:

Holy gently caress that is a buttload of stuff coming. Love the two major update books (Dominion Divided and Empire Alone)

Yeah after Tamar Rising I'm looking forward to the next few books. It's going to be nice to get screentime for the FWL too.

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.

Strobe posted:

I've been organizing my minis lately and picked out approximately a Level III's worth of ComGuard. First attempt feels like it's going pretty good:



Not decided on what basing to go with yet, and the lighting is pretty terrible since I took it in my kitchin at 1 am, but I'm pretty happy with how it's looking so far, and the scheme only took ~an hour and a half from start to finish for that.

That's looking cool. I just painted up a King Crab myself yesterday for an Eridani heavy lance. I've been using up my Citadel contrast green to end up with some more SLDF mechs.

As a note, anybody have tips for getting even coats with Citadel contrast paints? Some of my mechs end up looking like they're a mottled camo rather than a solid color. I've been rolling with it but there are some that I'd like to have solid.

Related, the army painter speed paints I've picked up are really good. I feel like the consistency is just better and I've started to paint up some bolder colors like Draconis Sword of Light and they're turning out better IMHO. The problem is that right now I don't have an olive drab color for them, the green they had in stock is more vibrant. On the plus side I have the colors for a Constructicon lance (thanks to PTN's Alpha Strike thread for inspiration on that)

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.

PoptartsNinja posted:

There was a video passed around semi-recently about someone using contrast paints to paint Gundam models.

The trick to deal with tide pools is to drybrush the areas you don't want any pooling with white until the pooling is completely covered/hidden and then go back over with a very thin layer of contrast paint to re-stain the surface without taking advantage of the contrast properties. It's kinda-like drybrushing with contrast paint.

Edit: I couldn't find the video but I have done it and it works pretty well.

They need to be varnished, but via airbrush or rattlecan (and then probably varnished a second time just in case), since brush-on varnish will reactivate them. It's inconvenient and irritating that Army Painter knows this is a thing but doesn't post any sorts of warnings about it.

The re-activation has something to do with the chemicals they used to get the paints to self-level, so it's a feature of the paint. :(

Cool thanks for the tip PTN. And thanks to you and Strobe bringing up the reactivation thing. I guess I haven't noticed or run into it yet, but painting miniatures is a pretty new experience for me all around so I normally only have 2 maybe 3 colors on the mechs

Edit: as a side note I really like the Army Painter dropper bottles over the Citadel pots I have.

Holybat fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Apr 25, 2022

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
Yup I was noticing the paint wasting of the pots so I just bought some dropper bottles and ball bearings off of Amazon this morning. Tossed in a vortex mixer too since you brought that up thanks.

That's really good to know about those particular citadel contrast colors re: white paint btw. I thought I had shaken them up enough but now I'm second guessing since the last few minis I painted I was using the militarum green that I wasn't as happy with the result.

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.

Strobe posted:

Militarum Green is a very good contrast for mechs, I have an entire company of them done. I'll try to get pictures today. They may even be in this thread still.

EDIT: found a WIP of them post-contrast

Those look awesome, exactly the reason I wanted to paint up a company of ELH/ SLDF too. Guess I need to be more thorough in the paint shaking and trying that dry brush technique. :v:

What color did you use for the cockpit glass?

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.

TheDiceMustRoll posted:

Dana Howl's insanely in depth video which goes through every single paint comparison finds it's a mixed bag like all paints. Some of them are just kind of not awesome regardless of who is making them (IIRC the purples aren't nice), some have annoying glossy sheens you might not want. For the most part its gonna come down to cost and how much of a dealbreaker the stupid citadel pots are to you, I guess.

Thanks for linking this video, her comparisons were pretty cool and I can see the problems that speedpaints might give me in the future. I'm interested in experimenting with more of them, but most of the painting I've been doing have been with the Citadel contrast paints and that's been OK for me as a complete noob.

The cost difference is really shocking but I guess with the problems that other folks have with the speedpaints in the thread it makes sense. But going to just best of both worlds it. Some of both types and ditching the citadel pots for dropper bottles.

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.

Der Waffle Mous posted:

Weren't the Liaos originally descended from Scottish weebs or did I imagine that?

I vaguely remember the old House Liao book having a Chancellor (Laurelli?) who rocked a kilt and tam o'shanter in a parade inspection.

Honestly stuff like that is what I think can make the setting interesting. The Capellan Confederation is Capellan in culture, not just a space China *reads Loren Coleman book* oh nevermind it's just space China with some cold war era Cambodia mixed in.
In seriousness I don't think his books are that bad for the most part but good lord the xin sheng stuff.

Of course, as the House Kurita book pics up thread show it's baggage the setting's been hauling for awhile. Having thumbed through the House Kurita book recently I really like how the culture section gets into how women in the Combine are expected to get married at 15 and considered into their "mature years" by 25, wtf :yikes:

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.

hot cocoa on the couch posted:

yeah i'm in this boat. i know about the lore, like the history of the galaxy and who controls what and the clan invasion details and such, but as for individual stories and characters i couldn't care less about lol. i just like the universe.

thanks for the positive feedback on the terrain btw! more to come in the future

I guess I'm in the category in that I really like the sourcebook character stuff but don't really care about most novel characters or the "canon" story as it were outside of how it can be folded into my table games. Just little details about these oddball space nobles and the dumb poo poo they get up to but more for the flavor and tone. I don't know if it's a popular opinion with the Battletech fanbase but I think the Jihad era sourcebooks that were more about just poo poo going off and nobody knowing what was actually going on was pretty neat. In the current games my buddies and I are running in the ilClan timeframe it's nice that the Tamar Rising book was more "these are the major things happening in the region" but more open ended.

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
Keep on posting this Strobe I like seeing people's looks at what makes a good mech in BT

plus I too share your anger and confusion at the "enhanced" LRM. why does it even have a minimum range for what you're paying for it in tonnage/space

Edit: I guess I shouldn't be surprised at Blaine Pardoe being bad at mech design

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
So I have a question for the experienced BT players. I saw with Strobe's post that they had some issues with some of the BV costs of several chassis. I'm more familiar with Alpha Strike and the PV of units in it since that's all my group and I have played regularly. Is BV much more unbalanced/gamed? What are the flaws players have with it?

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
if these mechs did the old MechWarrior 2 PC game behavior with that high of an overheat, the Nova H becomes the solahma ride of choice. One hell of a shot and you're not coming back to base when it cracks off :supaburn:

Edit: nevermind Hunchback IIC 2 keeps that chassis' suicidal Clanner ride crown holy poo poo lol

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
Got a question for anybody else that's run Alpha Strike before. I've got my hands on a newer printing of the Alpha Strike Commander's Edition. Looking through the optional rules, I'm wondering if any of you have used the Variable Damage rules and if they've made a big difference in your games?

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.

Strobe posted:

I hate the existence of variable damage in all of its forms but I am apparently in the minority on this one.

ok why? I'm curious I've been playing in my group with rules as written from the 1st ed AS book I had so this wasn't an option until now and I'm not really convinced that it's necessary. One of the nice things of AS for me is that the games can move fast

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.

Dr. Lunchables posted:

It would be really cool to see a bunch of stuff in a smaller, focused area. Picking a border conflict and doing a few single system books about it rather than the broad strokes, entire known galaxy stuff.

Yeah to echo what Strobe said, the new books are set up as nice areas for player groups to mess around in. You get some movers and shakers but it's region focused.

Edit: well not 100% certain but considering how Tamar Rising was set up the others coming this year seem to have the same feel

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.

Best Friends posted:

Hello all!

I occasionally run battletech games and rpg sessions, but due to the proliferation of mech types, nukes, and nationalism in the setting (i like the smaller scale space fiefdoms thing) i stopped paying attention to the setting at 3060. But, i think it’s time i finally catch up to the “present” era. Are there any primers I could read to get through the century plus of lore from fedcom civil war to wherever we are now?

You're in luck, catalyst game labs announced recently that one of the upcoming books in 4th quarter 2022 will be Battletech Universe, something that will cover everything leading up to the current ilClan Era:

https://bg.battletech.com/news/restocks-of-core-products-major-update-of-coming-releases/

Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
Yeah as sirfozzie mentioned, there's those compilations Technical Readouts. To cover the common ilClan units until the ilClan Recognition Guide TRO comes out I'd say the Technical Readouts Jihad and Dark Age will cover a lot of ground for your group.

Also if you're into Alpha Strike, http://www.masterunitlist.info has everything you need for AS unit cards.

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Holybat
Dec 22, 2006

I made this while you were asleep.
Thanks to catching covid at work this weekend, I've had much more time than I expected to get painting some miniatures! :v:

First up some in a classic SLDF olive drab, started with that Banshee and Marauder I got from random salvage boxes:


Next is a Star of Wolf(ish) or maybe Hell's Horses OmniMechs:


Here are some random Omnis I was playing around with some paints for Jade Falcon opfor:


A mercenary company/urban fighter company assortment with a couple I tried drybrushing with for the first time:


Just random ones with Citadel Contrasts:


More random ones but in all these cases I was using Army Painter speedpaints:


Here is the last company I've done up, using Citadel Contrasts, a Capellan Confederation opfor. I used the MWDA color types since those were two-tone and I'm not feeling adventurous enough to try to replicate regimental schemes lol:



Random thoughts from painting the last few days: I'm pretty far from experienced with painting minis but from my experiences so far I've had a much better time using the Army Painter speedpaints. I use a vortex mixer and even with that, I just seem to get less pleasing results to my eyes from the contrast paints. Especially with the Militarum Green which I mixed the poo poo out of, it just always feels blotchy to me. This may be due to my inexperience, I dunno. Also, maybe my process is slow enough right now, but I haven't run into the speedpaint reactivation issue. With the test figures I did the dark color first, then went over to the lighter ones to finish the figure. All of them also get the grey color to the weapons locations. On my final to-do once I get all of the minis I have painted up, I picked up some regular paints to dot the weapons ports especially for lasers/PPCs. Unfortunately I think my hands shake too much to dot the tiny missile warheads :smith:

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