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Finished the two remaining lances from my Davion Guards company:

Nice work Albertorius! Those stripes must have taken some serious patience. What's the mech in between the Warhammer (I think?) and Griffin in the second group?

I also finally got around to taking decent photos of the stuff I've been working on:

 Albertorius wrote:
Finished the two remaining lances from my Davion Guards company:

Where's that Phoenix Hawk from? I need to get one!


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 catbarf wrote:
Nice work Albertorius! Those stripes must have taken some serious patience. What's the mech in between the Warhammer (I think?) and Griffin in the second group?

I also finally got around to taking decent photos of the stuff I've been working on:

Love the SLDF green! How did you do the cockpits, especially the Marauder 2?

 Vulcan wrote:
Love the SLDF green! How did you do the cockpits, especially the Marauder 2?

I was going more for a jungle camo but it ended up being pretty subtle- oh well. And that's a regular MAD-3R, it's just a Matt Mason sculpt.

Anyways- I start with black, then paint the lower right half (across the diagonal) of each panel with VGC Heavy Red, then paint a crescent along the lower right with VMC Scarlet. I then feather heavily diluted black along the black -> Heavy Red transition, and heavily diluted Heavy Red along the Heavy Red -> Scarlet transition, applying a bunch of very thin layers that each dry in a few seconds. This blends it pretty quickly and without much trouble. Then it's just dot white in the upper left corner, varnish the whole model, and apply a few thin coats of gloss varnish to the canopy panels for shine.

I do all the canopies this way, it's just that some of the sculpts don't make them visible.

Clear hex-bases are an interesting touch.

Yeah, I never thought I'd use clear bases for any minis game, but for me one of the things that has always stood out about the Battletech setting is warfare across many fronts and in many environments, and I wanted to capture that feeling with terrain-agnostic basing.

I may go back and paint the edges of the bases black though; they do tend to catch the light and spoil the transparent effect. Aside from that I think it works pretty well- you can see on the previous page how clear-based mechs and terrain end up looking on a mat.

 Charistoph wrote:
There's the Cookbook, too. We've seen a copy of the final print of the Universe book, but not the Cookbook.

the cookbook I don't expect much from, it'll just be generic recpies with punny names

 catbarf wrote:
Nice work Albertorius! Those stripes must have taken some serious patience. What's the mech in between the Warhammer (I think?) and Griffin in the second group?

Hatchetman, the li'l original ax murdered of the setting (there weren't rules for it bak when it got released ^^)

I also finally got around to taking decent photos of the stuff I've been working on:

Those look stunning


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 Vulcan wrote:
Where's that Phoenix Hawk from? I need to get one!

The Wasp is a 3d sculpt I bought on Cults ^^. The only problem I have with it is that's single pose and I'd love to print me like a dozen... so more poses would have been great xD

So I got my Alpha Strike Succession Wars cards today, and I now have ten Combat Command cards. Are the rules for these in the current AS Commander's Edition? I'd have ordered that book at the same time, but was OoS at the time.

Also ordered four Clan Invasion Blind boxes and got.
1st Hunchback
1st Nightstar
2nd Trebuchet
3rd Warhammer

Slightly annoyed by the 3rd Warhammer, but at least it is not a Rifleman (of which I own three). Three RIflemen is two too many of that firetrap. Although I will admit the two unit/scenario books I own from the mid-80s will need at least one of each Unseen per side as there were only 24 or fewer mechs back then.

I'm 100% sold on clear bases. Gotta find some!

 Kanluwen wrote:
I'm 100% sold on clear bases. Gotta find some!

I got mine on Etsy- lots of shops that sell MDF have laser-cut acrylic bases.

Just be sure of whether they're measuring edge-to-edge or corner-to-corner. These are actually corner-to-corner, so a bit undersized for standard 1.25" hexes despite being nominally the same size.

I took advantage of that to make color-coded rings for woods hexes, so the trees can be removed and the mech placed inside the ring and it's still clear that it's in a terrain hex.

Edit: Oh, and you'll also need appropriate glue to prevent them from clouding up. Plasti-Zap Medium CA has worked well for me but it can still frost up a bit if there isn't enough airflow.

So, apologies for this interruption to the regular chat for a rules question.

I bought into BT recently and have a rather large collection of cgl mechs now. My wife and I have played a few small games of classic, but once the model count gets beyond 2 mechs a side, the games become a bit long for her.

I have the Alpha Strike box and rules, so we tried that, but my wife generally dislikes wargames with measuring, but loved the hex based movement in classic as it felt more like a boardgame. Anyway, I can’t get hold of the AS Commander’s rulebook – the only place in stock seems to be the cgl store and it costs £34 + £118 postage. I did buy a pdf of the book, but trying to learn rules from an old phone is a pain at my age

The main section I’ve been interested in is the section on converting AS to using hexes.

It states that each hex move uses 2” of the AS card movement stat and 1” for climbing a level.

My question… do you pay any proportion of the movement for turning in a hex? I couldn’t see anything in the pdf about it. For all the mech’s I’ve checked, they have double the Classic Movement value in Inches movement. Eg. Wasp has 12”j in AS and Move 6 in Classic.
I want to keep the ‘hex board game’ feel for my wife but using the quicker AS rules. Do I add that it costs 1” for a turn, or just half all the AS card movement values and use that as classic movement?

Apologies if this is all cross-game heresy.

For AS, at the end of movement, the unit can face in any direction. Facing is important for attacks and suchlike, but it doesn't cost any movement. This is at the very top of the first page about movement. Its P32 of my physical book. Not sure what it would be in the PDF.

If turning doesn't cost any movement in normal play, it probably just isn't mentioned in the hex-conversion rules.

I've had a few games of AS using hex maps as you can do remote play with others much more easily.

Try using Classic BT movement and weapon ranges on hex maps, and use Alpha Strike rules for combat?

 Vulcan wrote:
Try using Classic BT movement and weapon ranges on hex maps, and use Alpha Strike rules for combat?

The weapon rules don't translate very well with that.

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As a side note, the conversion notes state that if things don't seem to have good enough range, than you can use the normal 0-6 for Short, etc.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
Try using Classic BT movement and weapon ranges on hex maps, and use Alpha Strike rules for combat?

The weapon rules don't translate very well with that.

------------------------------
As a side note, the conversion notes state that if things don't seem to have good enough range, than you can use the normal 0-6 for Short, etc.

I bought Alpha Strike strictly for the minis. I'll have to dig out the actual rules and take a look, see if anything can be done.

I think for the AS hex games, I'm going to use the AS card values for movement and stick with it counting as 2" per hex move, 1" per level, but add in 1" use for a turn. This should still give the mechs the same or a small increase in movement than the classic values.
Hopefully it will keep the boardgame feel for games with my wife but allow us to use a fair few more models than classic.

Last weekend I got my 8 year old son to play the first game of Alpha Strike for both of us. I put together two small forces of three mechs each, and we played on a 3'x3' map and used only the most basic rules, so he could get the hang of calculating SATOR and measuring, and taking back shots into consideration. No building destruction or Overheating for extra damage complications.

We did use the optional DFA rules for multiple damage rolls, using a pilot D6, combined with a D6 for every point of damage at the given range, to get the To-Hit rolls. It makes it feel much more like the mechs are firing multiple weapon systems that may or may not hit.

I've been building two competing forces and I played some mechs from my main Rasalhague force (green), and he played a trio chosen from my blue and red Lyrans.

As per usual, he savaged me. I knew I had stacked the deck slightly in his favor, but man, oh, man. While I whittled away at his mechs, he proceeded to kill my Wolverine with his Rifleman at point-blank range by scoring an Ammo Hit when damaging it's first available structure point, and then that Rifleman proceeded to turn and help the Warhammer finish it's job of killing my commander in his Marauder I tried to get my Marauder off the board, but it was down to one structure point, was running hot from an Engine Hit, and had taken TWO fire control hits. At short range, I had to roll 10's just to hit his damaged Warhammer, and even when I managed it once, I of course rolled "No Critical Hit".

I'm surprised there are enough rules in AlphaStrike that you can actually simplify it further!


Cooling looking table though.

I know Alpha Strike is pretty polarizing amongst Battletech players, but honestly it worked just fine for me as a casual ruleset, especially for gaming with kids who are right on the edge of being able to handle complicated rules, and considering how much more I can add from the Commander's Edition as we play more games and add in some vehicles, terrain rules, Pilot abilities, etc.. Eventually if I'm lucky enough maybe we'll even use the (pretty slick in my opinion) Jared Blando campaign rules.


I play in somewhat-weekly Battletech games at a gaming store, and frankly after a hard day of work Classic can just sometimes be too mentally fatiguing by the end of a 10K BV game.

I was making fun.

Of course such a ruleset makes sense for young kids. I mean, you wouldn't start them on Starfleet Battles until they're at least 10!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm surprised there are enough rules in AlphaStrike that you can actually simplify it further!


Cooling looking table though.

Oh it does have a crapton of rules, actually. The commanders edition is surprisingly dense. Sometimes baffingly so.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I was making fun.

Of course such a ruleset makes sense for young kids. I mean, you wouldn't start them on Starfleet Battles until they're at least 10!

Oh, no worries. I have seen enough years of your posts to recognize your tone as joking, lol.

I just thought I'd finally mention how it's always been weird to me how extreme some players of Battletech can be about Alpha Strike. About a year ago I met a Battletech community in my area and since then I have been playing "Classic" (oh please nobody start that old naming argument, lol) regularly with them, and two of the three of them almost completely turn their noses up at Alpha Strike as a "lesser" game, which mystifies me. It's obviously different, but now that I have played a game, it's really fun in its own way. Namely, speed!

My son really wants me to get off my butt and paint up my Longbow for the Lyran force so he can use it, and I don't really even want to imagine trying to work an 8 year old with ADD through a chart-tastic combat phase full of modifiers with THAT sucker in normal Battletech, lol. But he totally gets the meaning behind why the damage goes up and down with range in AS.

The plans for the next game is using Overheat because he was already asking about the Heat numbers on his cards, maybe showing how to use Indirect Fire, and I might as well set our games in the early Succession Wars, because once he is shown how to level buildings and/or walk through them, no town is safe.

I mean I turn my nose up at AlphaStrike because I just don't see the point, and because I think in its attempts to speed up and streamline BTech is has removed that which makes BTech interesting from a gameplay perspective.

If people like it, then that's cool, but it's just not Battletech to me.

I find it useful when a scenario requires a large number of units on the field, like company v company, or company v 3 companies (yes, did that, it was rough).

It's also good for bringing in new players who are used to other games.

Still, it doesn't really do that "Boom, Head Shot!" feel like Classic does.

 Charistoph wrote:
I find it useful when a scenario requires a large number of units on the field, like company v company, or company v 3 companies (yes, did that, it was rough).

It's also good for bringing in new players who are used to other games.

Still, it doesn't really do that "Boom, Head Shot!" feel like Classic does.

Well, my son effortlessly killed a Wolverine with his second attack in the entire game against it with an Ammo Crit out of nowhere, so it gave him the same feel! Unless a unit has CASE or CASEII, I feel it adequately accomplishes the same "BANG you're dead!" feeling that I got against a new player in a Classic game where I PPC-ed his Hunchback's head off with an Awesome.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I was making fun.

Of course such a ruleset makes sense for young kids. I mean, you wouldn't start them on Starfleet Battles until they're at least 10!

I'm not sure anyone under the age of 40 has the attention span for SFB. Barring an accounting degree...


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 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I mean I turn my nose up at AlphaStrike because I just don't see the point, and because I think in its attempts to speed up and streamline BTech is has removed that which makes BTech interesting from a gameplay perspective.

If people like it, then that's cool, but it's just not Battletech to me.

Agreed. Being a grognard I'm not even fond of all the later periods and technologies. 3060 and beyond, I start losing interest fast. For me, 3025 is where BT is best.

BUT. I acknowledge that's just ME. If you like Ilkhan stuff, Dark Ages, Alpha Strike, heck, if you like ClickyTech, more power to you. So long as you're having fun you're doing it right.

As a player that's relatively new to the nitty gritty parts of the fluff, I'm actually more interested in playing games set in the Amaris Civil war and early Succession war-eras myself. Even if it's just in Alpha Strike, I am getting one of the Proliferation Cycle packs to field crazy oldies like the Mackie alongside the more normal unseen mechs that date back from that era. Or even some of the mechs that went practically extinct by 3025, like the Shogun, that I have a cool 3D print of from a buddy.

The ilClan era is a bit too foreign to me. I may just be misinformed, but at first blush it almost feels more like it's becoming a high-tech near-future setting to me, rather then the quaintness of the earlier eras being what is essentially the Hundred Year's War, but where the knights wear nuclear powered armor.

Sarna has a new article on some interesting new terrain. More relevant for AlphaStrike than BTech Proper, but interesting nonetheless.

 Charistoph wrote:
I find it useful when a scenario requires a large number of units on the field, like company v company, or company v 3 companies (yes, did that, it was rough).

It's also good for bringing in new players who are used to other games.

Still, it doesn't really do that "Boom, Head Shot!" feel like Classic does.

Maybe but at the same time the classic game can, understandably feel clunky to someone whose grown up playing more uhh.. "modern" table top games. I think both options are GREAT games for their own reasons. But yeah the ability of a lucky hit to swing the game in odd ball directions is one of my favorite parts of battletech, my best story that was was when a King crab got 4 hexes behind my Templar Prime's rear arc (yeah yeah I messed up) I figured I was done for, but he MISSED, and then I torso twisted and managed to fire my arm mounted gauss rifle into my rear arc and..... HEAD SHOT!

It was EPIC!