A Variety Of Topics

Hello all again! A few different things to discuss this time around. First up on that list is the $7.5 million elephant in the room, namely the Catalyst Kickstarter for Mercenaries expansion. I did indeed sink some money into this and am quite looking forward to a lot of it. Oddly enough the main box set is the part that has the least amount of plastic in it that I'm looking forward to. I definitely want to get my hands on all the new rules and fluff in the set for sure, however only the Maxim Hover Transports, Ostsol, Quickdraw, and Firefly are on my want list with the rest just not appealing to me and most likely I'll be looking to trade those away with friends from Johnson City after we recieve everything whenever that is. As to the Force Packs, I can't wait to get the Support: Assault and Cavalry, Support: Objectives, and Support: Recon and Hunter packs. Warrior helicopters, Behemoth and Ontos tanks, Skulkers, Long Toms, Hover Tanks, Demolishers and Shreks, what is there not to love? I'll be passing on the Support: Battle and Fire pack as I don't need more SRM or LRM carriers and never cared for the Vendette Tanks.

I'll also be passing on the Clan and ComStar packs as I'm not looking to expand my Clan forces and no desire to field a ComStar/WOBblie force. IS Assault Lance is one I don't care for the mechs and While I DO want the Ostroc, I'm not getting the IS: Heavy Recon pack for it and three mechs I don't want. The Dervish I want some of but not the others so I'll be passing on the IS: Persuit Lance pack as well. Hopefully I can get Ostrocs and Dervish when people start breaking up their packs to sell after everything gets shipped. Now the IS: Recon Lance packs is on my list to get as I want the Ostscout for sure and Javelins and Firestarters are also nice to have, with the Spector left as trade bait as the odd mech out. IS: Security Lance is one I'm on the fence about. I would like the Whitworth and Vulcan, and the Scorpion is slightly tempting though the Jagermech is unappealing. This is one I might pick up retail after it is all over. I'll be passing on all the Legendary packs as none of the characters or specialty mechs really calls to me. The Support: Command Lances will be one I look at getting though as I love the Hetzer, Sturmfeur, and Von Luckners and I'm sure I'll be able to find a home for the Bulldog. The Support: Battle and Sweep Lances though I'll most likely pass on. While I would love to get some Pattons, the Pike isn't appealing and I don't really want the J. Edgars or Drillsons either. Again, this is one I might consider at retail after it is all shipped and in stores regularly.

Now moving on to the swag is where it gets interesting. I'll definitely be getting a full set of the Eridani Light Horse swag. Depending on how the extras all work out Star League would be my second swag choice to go with my ELH, and if there is a third choice it'll most likely be Northwind Highlanders as the tartan items just look too cool. As to the map packs, I'll most likely look to get city battlemats just for something really different from the paper and cardboard maps I already have. Moving on to the Plushies ... I have to get the one Atlas as it's ELH and that's a given. As much as I would like an Urbie, I just don't care for the units they're done in and will have to regretably pass. The 4" MadCat looks cool, and maybe I can talk Cheef into painting it up for me in an interesting Clan Ghost Bear scheme for me one day. I'll be ending up with quite a few salvage boxes and what I do with those will come down to what is in them. The Visigoth fighter will end up as trade bait as again not adding to my Clan forces.

Even though I worked on Wednesday and Thursday, I did catch a fair bit of the livestream that the Catalyst people did on twitch through SixSidesofGaming. A lot of this was quite entertaining including the interview that Rem, Catalyst's new social media director, did with George LeDoux. He is a very entertaining man who seems quite humble and appreciative of how much he has been embraced by the Battletech community over the years. It was a pre-recorded interview from back in Feb but still quite enjoyable. The last hour of the campaign was interesting to watch the whole team on the stream from various locations taking a moment to enjoy its successes while thanking the community and backers profusely. They seemed quite enthusiastic to get into the next stage of the campaign, the backer kits, while already discussing new projects that are on the drawing board already. I thought it quite nice that even though the 8 million mark wasn't unlocked, Loren, the CEO, said that those items wouldn't be allowed to be picked as rewards for the different backer tiers but that they would be including them as possible add-ons in the backer kit which I thought was a nice gesture.

At the moment I'm not doing any painting as I am trying to upgrade my supplies to improve my painting of mechs beyond just table top minimum quality. I've gotten a better lit magnifier to use and have some much better brushes on order as well. I've been looking at some tutorials as well including an interesting one on how to get better consistency when thinning my paints that I'm going to try. I've also picked up some different basing material to see about doing more than one type of basing per unit like I currently do with just grass, fall flocking, snow, or sand. The one thing I am going to remain wary of doing myself, and when it comes time will probably see if I can bring everything up one game night to get Cheef or Neverness to help with, is decals. I just have always had no luck with them and with the new plastic models in such nice quality, I do want this new regiment of ELH to be properly decalled, especially since I already own all the decals to do it with. So that's where we are right now as far as myself and battletech. Hopefully my ramblings made some sense and I'll see you all next time with a battle review as my Ozawa Urban Defense Brigade will be taking the field against Cheef tomorrow evening.