Brother Glacius

I'm not too far from RCG. But my play time is severely limited currently. That being said, I'd be up for some small games myself.

I saw your product at Mindtaker! Congrats Scott!

Hey Ordo, I just received my new Alpha Strike box from Catalyst games. I did buy it thru amazon for about $60 and being a prime member, had the free shipping (next day even), so a good value. The box comes with figs, 3D terrain, a quick start book, a primer book (most excellent), a short novella, dice and cards. The first thing I want to talk about is the Primer. It is a nice booklet that tells you a brief history of the Inner Sphere and the Clans all the way up to the ilClan stage which is around 3160 or so I think. One of the coolest aspects is that they have assigned icons to each major period in the history. So you have the Star League, Succession Wars, Clan Invasion, Civil War, Jihad, Dark Age, and ilClan. What is great about this is that on publications and the unit cards, they have the icons which state which period it is about, or can be used in. So that is really nice that you can easily play a game of Succession War period by making sure you only choose mechs that have that icon. I will go on to say then that it is most likely that you can have multiple cards for a single mech to take it thru the various time periods and tech advancements. I'd assume a Warhammer for instance with only the Succession Wars icon would be less powerful than a later Jihad Warhammer. Can't say that for sure yet though. But the take away is, the Primer does a good job of giving you info over the whole history of Battletech and helps you navigate the products. Alpha Strike has the ilClan icon on it. It comes with both IS and Clan mechs, 13 mechs total. The new plastics they have been putting out are based on the MWO and Mechwarrior5 designs (or very closely resemble them). I'm sure they will paint up just fine. There are three types of cards with the game: mechs, pilots, and support. So the mech cards are fairly straight forward, gives you stats and points for the various mechs in the box. The pilot cards are an extra layer of strategy added on giving each side one pilot in a mech that has a special ability and typically better skill levels. The Support cards are off map attacks basically...optional and allow you to try to inflict a little more damage via air support or artillery. The 3D terrain is all card based, with rectangular boxes of various sides with "building" art printed on them. They do give you a good amount though. On thicker card stock they give you trees in a basic X pattern to stand up. Full color and they do the job. You also get a nice thick cardstock reference sheet. The rules themselves are fairly straight forward. They do a fairly good job of covering what you need to know. The game basically flows with alternating activations of mechs for movement, loser of initiative goes first, then once all movement is done, loser shoots all mechs first, then winner of init. However, effects from shooting don't apply until after all shooting is done. This way the winner of init gets to see exactly how his opponent acts and can then change tactics if needed. Rinse and repeat. I think it does a good job of capturing the feel of battletech while really slimming down the time it takes to play. It even includes an optional rule so that the damage mechs do is mitigated a bit and I think will actually bring a bit more drama to the game. The rules also describe formations. These are special perks you get from including certain combinations of mechs. For example, if you include a lance made up of mechs with the sniper rule (not all, but most), then some of them will get reductions to target penalties for range. Again, just a nice little extra layer of strategy added to the game. My only complaint so far is that some of the mech cards have special rules on them which are not covered in the quick start rules. That being said, I already plan on getting the Commander's edition book which will cover all of that. The figure packs that are released come with Alpha Strike cards and Mech Pilot cards as well. I'm very impressed with how well thought out all of this has been by Catalyst. Its nice that this figures can be used for both Battletech and Alpha Strike with no extra purchase necessary. That being said, they also sell card packs for some of the periods too. I know I'll be buying the Succession Wars card pack because that is my favorite period. With a retail of $80 and all the cool stuff you get, its a very good value. I think this is an excellent entry point into battletech and a decent game all on its own. Most lance packs are going for around $20-$25, and they are just about to start a new kickstarter for Mercenaries and I think really bring in support pieces like tanks and infantry. Looking forward expanding this game and Battletech all at the same time.

I actually spent some time on the wiki to see how the timeline advanced....not sure if I'm a big fan of it. But yeah, 3rd Succession War is my favorite period and the one I'm most familiar with. I also like the environment of technology backslide. Fighting for weapon caches or the hope of finding lost tech...yada yada yada. Well my AS box just arrived today, so I'm going to dive into that. I'll probably order the Commander's Edition next and Succession Wars card pack to complete it. I like how the lance boxes come with AS cards so nothing extra to buy there. Will definitely be down to playing at WoW or something in the near future. I know there's some more mech heads lurking somewhere.

Curious if there are any Battletech players still lurking around in Ordo. BT was my very first wargame that I ever got into way back in 1984. I bought my copy from the Green Dragon in Charlestown Mall in SC. I still have that box set and have picked up the various editions as they came out. Well apparently it is doing quite well in the hands of Catalyst games and the new plastic models are fantastic. I just ordered the Alpha Strike box set as that seems like a fun way to do larger scale games without taking a whole day. Not a fan of the clans and such. I'm more of a 3025 player. But still hoping to find some like-minded players around Portland.

One of my friends is thinking of starting up a game and I have no clue how to play 2nd ed. I have a pdf, but would do much better reading an actual book.

dang it, I need to get you a model of cold war rpg infantryman so I can boost my warsaw forces 🙂

hmmmmm might be able to try for a game at MM. I'll need to check with the wife unit. Oh wait, you said AM...that does not work for me.

I'd be down for playing that way. Pretty sure I have all the indexes too. I'll have to go take a look.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/8uGbgSEHTzhmpv1u8 https://photos.app.goo.gl/hWG4zMyLkvHwSnjXA This is the model from the previous picture...finally got the supports off.

myminifactory has some bfg stuff and of course OPR has a bunch of fleets too

J1 had a glass bed, but the default side is rough and the other is smooth. Used the rough side for the print. So as an update, I tried to use an exacto to slide under the mass, and was able to get it there, but the blade was too bendy. Got my model tool out and the whole thing popped right off. Just needed to find the right leverage point I guess. So the model came out great...a few scratches and marks on it from my mangling, but otherwise it was a success. I'll adjust my support settings to those recommended and hope that next time its not such an issue.

My first two attempts were feet down, but one of the legs went all spaghetti about a third of the way up, and then the other attempt, a front support came off the bed early on. I've got Cura and Luban as my slicers. I'll check the settings and go again with your suggestions. Learning is fun!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/imp9H5Qb4giWpW2J9 As you can see in the picture, there is about half a centimeter area touching the back of the elephant that is quite thick and then the supports thin out.

I'll post one up later today.

that is the problem, the sheer number of supports on the back of the elephant is near solid...as they get further away, then there are gaps in the supports, not sure how I should have set it.

so yesterday I tried to print an elephant on my J1 snapmaker flm printer. The first time was using cura and about a third of the way in, spaghetti happened with one of the legs...odd since that is a very thick part. So next I used their luban slicer and tried again...this time I could tell the supports at the bottom went bad right away....So finally I tried luban again, but I flipped the mode upsidedown first, thinking that maybe trying to do the legs with supports was too much....I also reinforced the area on the plate for extra adhesion...that seemed to work....but now the supports aren't coming off the model. I used the default settings from luban with a 50 degree angle. a few areas the supports popped right off, but due to the large area on the back...those are holding tight. How do I resolve this?

I'm a patreon of them actually. Just haven't gotten to a point of trying a game out...but its on my to-do list.

I can remember when playing meant you just needed to know the stat line of the shooter, the target, and the weapon. Any games do that anymore?

I bought into it when it first came out because it was nice to look at on the table. Seemed cool. But GW's latest nonsense of using symbols and shapes turned me away from it. I purged all my stuff to mindtaker last year. That said, I'd be willing to look at the rules again to see if its any better. I like the concept of the game...warbands fighting each other...but after 50 years, my head can only absorb so many new rule systems. 🙂

Let me know when its not, still won't let me send messages

send me a personal message. it is still saying you can't receive any.

Can't send you messages in ordo? Says you can't receive.

I'm struggling a bit with the various limits based on PL and then how multiple stats are combined and set limits too. would love to sit down with you and go over char creation. We play over roll20, so if you are interested in that, let me know and I can find you a seat. that being said, its not our main game.