Ish

1 hour ago, InfestedKerrigan said:

It can withstand contact with Lightsabers, and gave the Mandalorians an edge over Jedi that other Planetary Systems didn't have.

 

But the visor isn’t made of Beskar... 

🤷‍♂️ I am neither a lawyer nor an accountant. If you’re worried about the $2.40 of unpaid bottle deposits, you can always return them to a recycling center and tell them not to give you the money.

Actually, the cans are marked for deposit by the manufacturer / bottler and will carry the same marks regardless of which state you buy them in. It's actually illegal to return for deposit cans or bottles purchased out of state. Although an attempt at doing so made for a hilarious episode of Seinfeld.

I’m hoping to keep the fairly story episodic, with a few recurring Big Bad Evil Guys and Big Ideas to link things, but have most individual game sessions be fairly self-contained.

So if you or other players can only join once in a while, there shouldn’t be any problems. 

A long time ago, in a hobby shop far, far away... I discovered the classic West End Games Star Wars The Roleplaying Game, it was the second RPG I ever played after D&D. With the buzz of the new movies, new video games, The Mandalorian, and what have you, I'm kind of itching to play the game again. 

From 1987 to 1998, West End Games released official Star Wars roleplaying game sourcebooks, adventure modules, setting guides, and all manner of other stuff. All of this material was approved by LucasFilm, even making its way into the the novels and comic-books that comprised the original Star Wars Expanded Universe. Timothy Zhan was famously given several giant boxes of WEG game books before he started writing Heir to the Empire, the firsrt book in the Thrawn Trilogy.  The massive success of the Thrawn novels led to the great boom in Expanded Universe novels and comics. The success of those, in turn, made LucasFilm and George Himself see the potential for making the Prequel Trilogy... and here we are.

Unfortunately, behind-the-scenes shenanigans -- namely massive embezzlement by upper management -- meant that West End Games went bankrupt and lost the Star Wars license... a year before The Phantom Menace hit theaters.  A year later, Wizards of the Coast picked it up, and ran with their own Star Wars game using D20 system for a decade until they let it lapse in 2010. Fantasy Flight Games now holds the license and continues to produce a great game... But I like the West End Games version, specifically their very first edition from 1987 the best.

West End Games' Star Wars RPG is a fun, easy-to-learn system. It plays fast, cinematic, and does a great job at emulating the tone of the films. Every character has six attributes: Strength, Dexterity , Perception, Knowledge, Mechanical, and Technical. These are rated by how many dice are in them; so your character might have a Dexterity of 3D, which means she rolls 3d6 every time he makes a Dexterity check. Skills fall under Attributes, and their dice are added to the Attribute when making skill checks. For example, if you have a Dexterity of 3D and you put one dice into Blasters, your Blasters skill starts at 4D. Roll them, add them up, try to meet or exceed the target number. Congrats, you've just learned 90% of the game mechanics.

I'm thinking of running a campaign, every other Tuesday night at WOW. Set shortly after the events of A New Hope, featuring a rag-tag band of Rebels (or at least, Rebel sympathetic scoundrels) having some old school, space opera adventures. "Have blaster -- Will travel."

You can find a fan-produced "Revised, Expanded, and Updated" version of the Star Wars The Roleplaying Game First Edition rules here: Star Wars Classic Adventures. Totally free. 

A landing bay, with a big "it will fit a Valkyrie" sized door in the floor makes for really interesting terrain for an "interior" battlefield. It gives you the tactical effect of having a large open space, without inexplicably having a garden-park in the middle of your grimdark battle cruiser.

I blame Jim Johnson.

People hate the Urbie, other people love the Urbie... I’m firmly in the love category. They’re actually really good at doing the job they were designed for, it’s just a really niche job.

At 1.5 million C-Bills a pop, with six tons of armor (on a thirty ton ‘mech), and carrying pretty big gun, the Urbie is just the right mixture of “won’t scare the civilians” and “get the hell off my property.” 

It’s not meant to tussle with Heavies and Assaults in open fields, it’s meant to #%@& up any Raider and Pirate Light ‘Mechs that stray into a city.

BattleChonk: A Game of Heckin Combat

“The audience for that film is more selective than some of his other, more general appeal works.”

Nuffle is a kind and loving god.

He’s just not necessarily kind and loving to you.

15 minutes ago, Andrewgeddon said:

I mean, I like Harry Potter. But I'm contractually obligated to like any film / film series that Gary Oldman has appeared in. 

I’d be inclined to agree, but only with you put a big’ol asterisk on that statement to leave out Lost in Space. 

Seven swans to rule them all,

Six geese to find them,

Five rings to bring them all,

And in the pear tree bind them.

Where’s the fetus gonna gestate? In a box!?

Catalyst current offers two boxed versions of Battletech. There's the $19.99 MSRP Battletech Beginner Box and the $59.99 MSRP Battletech A Game of Armored Combat. 

The Beginner Box comes with two plastic `mechs (a Griffin and a Wolverine), one map sheet, a twelve-page heavily abridged rulebook, and some other gubbins. The AGoAC set comes with eight plastic `mechs**, two map sheets, a 56-page less abridged rulebook, and other gubbins. I've been looking at leaping back into Battletech and the AGoAC set seems to be a much better deal. 

There's two "core" rulebooks, the BattleMech Manual includes only the rules for `mech versus `mech gameplay, whereas Total Warfare includes `mechs and everything else.

* A Griffin and Wolverine.

** An Awesome, BattleMaster, Catapult, Commando, Locust, Shadow Hawk, Thunderbolt, and Wolverine.

Edited the Unit Profile up above with corrected Mech costs, pilots taken from your thread here, and some support personnel. If I correctly did my maths, I have 3,299,184 CB left from my initial 60 million. I figure I'll keep all of that in reserve, unless some basic flatbed trucks and cargo-handling equipment isn't built in to the DropShip's price.  

15 minutes ago, Zorcon said:

Bringing Lost Worlds again to the Club tonight. Any interest?

I’d love to give it a go if there’s time before Shadowrun.

That’s a subversive communist image! It calls Friend Computer “deranged,” it must be the work of traitors! 
 

Terrible news, my fellow nerds, the legendary D.C. Fontana, writer for Star Trek and so much else, has passed away. She’s been writing for film and television since the 1960’s, so it’s be impossible to sum up everything she’s done. But given that one of her notable accomplishments is basically creating the entire backstory and personality for Spock... Well, her place in the pantheon of Nerd Heaven is secure.

For what it’s worth, To Serve All of My Days from the Star Trek: Phase II fan-film project was the last fully produced writing credit in her filmography and one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek. Plus a helluva performance by Walter Koenig.

One of the reasons I like Wasps*, Archers, and Phoenix Hawks is that they all have hands. Makes salvage ops easier.

But, yeah, a full Company of ‘mechs doesn’t come cheap. 
 

* (in addition to them being built on Detroit)

You know how it works, @InfestedKerrigan. If you collect a Chaos Warriors army using all these shiny new toys as soon as you are 4/5ths of the way through finishing your painting backlog of ‘em, that will be when GW announces a new Lizardman army.

Detroit Consolidated MercWorks

Unit Profile (as of 3020)
CO:                     Major Isaiah Sanders-Howe
XO:                     Captain Aretha Cooper
JumpShips:     No
DropShips:      Yes
Aerospace:     No
Armor:             No
Infantry:          No

Unit History
Detroit Consolidated MercWorks is a Mercenary Company that is most notable for being a subsidiary of Detroit Consolidated MechWorks, one of the most technologically advanced military hardware manufacturers in the Periphery. The Detroit system is located near the Appian and Linhauiguan systems and was first colonized in 2488.

Detroit remained an independent Periphery world for much of its history, although the resources produced by the planet led to the Magistracy of Canopus and the Taurian Concordat battling for attempted control of the planet during the First Succession War. Detroit held the dubious distinction of being involved in the only full-scale conflict to be fought between Periphery states during any of the Succession Wars. The Taurian-Canopian War - also referred to as the 200-Hour War - was a brief and largely pointless campaign fought between the Magistracy of Canopus and the Taurian Concordat. 

The brief conflict resulted in a negotiated truce signed on Detroit in February 2814, which included an agreement that Detroit and the neighboring systems of Herotitus and Spencer would all be "demilitarized systems."  Two centuries later, when the Concordat and Magistracy began a joint colonization venture in the area dubbed the New Colony Region, Detroit was incorporated into that region.

Formation
Chartered in 3015, Detroit Consolidated MercWorks is not officially a part of the government forces of Detroit. They are legally required by their charter to accept only MCRB contracts that will have them operating off world. However, a few times during their brief history they've responded to pirate raids against their homeworld "voluntarily." 

Detroit Consolidated MercWorks owns one Union-class DropShip, christened the DCMS-101 Menominee, and can field three Lances of BattleMechs.

Maj. Isaiah Sanders-Howe

Isaiah Sanders-Howe (Born 5 May 2981) is the commander of the Detroit Consolidated MercWorks mercenary unit. Known for his pragmatic and cautious approach to warfare, especially the use of long-range and indirect fire. Sander-Howe is acknowledged by most who knew him as a father-figure to his men and would go to great lengths to prioritize the survival of his MechWarriors over that of their `Mechs.

Appearance
Isaiah Sanders-Howe is a man of average height, slightly over-weight, with grey eyes and balding brown hair.

History
Isaiah Sanders-Howe was born in Flint, on Detroit, the son and grand-son of mine workers who labored in the deep chasm located between Dearborn and Flint known as the Warren Fault. The Warren Fault provided inexpensive access to many precious mineral veins, but conditions were dangerous and worker safety was a low priority for the corporations that ran the mines. Therefore, throughout his whole youth Isaiah's parents pushed him towards schooling, atheletics, trade programs... Anything that might give him a shot at a career outside the mines. At the age of 13, he enlisted with the 3rd Battalion, 4th McCarron's Armored Cavalry as a `Mech Astech, eventually working his way up to a journeyman `Mech Technician by age 20. Placed in charge of a tech crew maintaining an older Catapult CPLT-C1. During an operation to pacify a pirate operation in the Corodiz system, the MechWarrior assigned to Sanders-Howe was killed when their base camp came under enemy air assault. Sanders-Howe lept into the cockpit himself and shot down both of the pirate aerospace fighters... He was given a field promotion to MechWarrior the next day.

Sanders-Howe served McCarron's Armored Cavalry with quiet professionalism for the next twelve years. Sanders-Howe was as careful with his pay as he was with his troops, eventually saving up over one million C-Bills. Sanders-Howe had planned a quiet retirement back home on Detroit, but he was approached representatives of some Detroit's business and civic leaders. Under the terms of the  Magistracy of Canopus and the Taurian Concordat's peace treaty, Detroit was officially a "demilitarized system" and couldn't raise any military of its own. However, the risk of another war between the Periphery's larger powers (or worse a war between the Great Houses) swallowing up Detroit was seen as too great not to take some precautions against. Thus, the formation of Detroit Consolidated MercWorks.

Sanders-Howe was named its first commanding officer and his million C-Bill investment allowed him to buy 5% of the shares.

1st Lance / Command Lance [ [ 17,997,185 CB ]
Marauder MAD-3R                                                           [ 6,627,250 CB ] Pilot: Issiah Sanders-Howe (2/3/4)                 Salary: 2,000 CB
Catapult CPLT-C1                                                             [ 5,691,525 CB ] Pilot: Bhan Van Bao (4/4/5)                              Salary: 1,000 CB
Phoenix Hawk PXH-1                                                      [ 4,066,090 CB ] Pilot: Gesualdo Painu  (4/4/4)                          Salary: 1,000 CB  
Wasp WSP-1A                                                                  [ 1,612,320 CB ] Pilot: Abdur Raqeeb al-Monsouri (4/4/4)        Salary: 1,000 CB   (Also an Assistant Tech)  

2nd Lance / Fire Lance [ 17,120,041 CB ]
Blackjack BJ-1                                                                 [ 3,145,775 CB ] Pilot: Ludvig Fisker (3/4/4)                                Salary: 2,000 CB 
Archer ARC-2R                                                                 [ 6,180,973 CB ] Pilot: Velizar Lazarevic (4/3/6)                         Salary: 1,000 CB  
Archer ARC-2R                                                                 [ 6,180,973 CB ] Pilot: Storm Hemmingsen (4/3/4)                   Salary: 1,000 CB   (Also an Assistant Tech)  
Wasp WSP-1A                                                                  [ 1,612,320 CB ] Pilot: Szabo Zsofia (4/5/4)                               Salary: 1,000 CB  

3rd Lance / Recon Lance [ 6,583,590 CB ]
Commando COM-2D                                                       [ 1,823,750 CB ] Pilot: Einar Folkbiornsson (3/4/4)                    Salary: 2,000 CB 
Locust LCT-1M                                                                 [ 1,612,320 CB ] Pilot: Raquel  Kanashiro  Bitencourt (4/4/3)   Salary: 1,000 CB   (Also an Assistant Tech)       
Wasp WSP-1A                                                                  [ 1,612,320 CB ] Pilot: Tinecia Middlesex (4/5/6)                        Salary: 1,000 CB          
Wasp WSP-1A                                                                  [ 1,612,320 CB ] Pilot: Josif Rudin (4/5/5)                                    Salary: 1,000 CB  

Other Assets
Union-class DropShip                                                       [ 15,000,000 CB ] Crew: 13 Enlisted, 1 Veteran Officer              Salary: 15,000 CB          
`Mech Technicians                                                           Crew: 2 Veteran Techs, 6 Assistant Techs*                                 Salary: 10,000 CB

Subtotal (Monthly Salary): 40,000 CB          
Monthly Loan Payment:      250,000 CB                                  

* Not counting MechWarriors also acting as Assistant Techs    
        
         

So... The hours I've spent bashing my head against Campaign Operations isn't necessary? 

Because I seriously just spent the last five hours figuring out the peacetime fuel consumption of a Union-class DropShip; the monthly salaries of my MechWarriors, tech crews, and the administrative support staff; and peace-time ammunition consumption costs... Arrrgh!