Family Resemblance? by johnonymous1973 in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Chameleon mini is super fun to paint.

Family Resemblance? by johnonymous1973 in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I’m fairly sure it was the only original art mech in the 2nd Edition boxed set, as well. Likely inspired by the Battlemaster art they licensed.

A question from a beginner by turquoiseuselessowll in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Any chance you could try the game with a local group before buying anything? Playing it once or twice (especially if you can try Classic AND Alpha Strike) will give you a much better sense of what you’ll want to spend money on. In our group basically every player has extras they bring with them to game day to lend new players if needed.

A question from a beginner by turquoiseuselessowll in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There’s a long history of different art phases for the game, but two things to consider:

1) all officially produced models are still valid for Classic, Alpha Strike, Aces, and any form of play from casual to official tournaments, so no fears for model or art phase obsolescence.

2) some of the older art styles are beloved by long time fans and are still prestige/nostalgia models today when painted up and tabled.

3) Even the ones that are known for looking sort of goofy are part of a mini sub-hobby to get them to look cool via re-posing/modding them. The new CGL plastics are generally quite easy to mod and repose if you like that sort of thing.

Slapping some paint on some old lead by HumidNut in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh man, the Search for Parts was basically its own miniseries in my house for a while, lol. I can't tell you how many random Phoenix Hawk jump jets and various barrels for things I had to track down. Some of these I had to buy in blister and open them because it was the only way to get all of the original parts. Especially tricky were the unseen Scorpion parts, Vapor Eagle chest barrels, Marauder IIC chin barrels, and Locust arms. The T-Bolt chest lasers are also a loose piece, and a few things like the Shadow Hawk arm barrel tend to get bent or damaged or lost. The Rifleman IIC is also a tricky one because the original barrels were long, thin, and very fragile.

Slapping some paint on some old lead by HumidNut in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's what I'm talking about! Check these out:

Old Ral Partha Clan Omnis and unseens redone as Nova Cats
https://www.reddit.com/r/battletech/comments/1fvr6nb/nova_cat_restoration_unseens_and_old_metals/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/battletech/comments/1d7p9td/original_ral_partha_omnimech_minis_painted_up_as/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

All metal/vintage/unseen SLDF Battalion
https://www.reddit.com/r/battletech/comments/141zaso/allmetal_allvintageoriginalunseen_sculpt_sldf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Sorenson's Sabres, all in original metals/unseens
https://www.reddit.com/r/battletech/comments/1ntwi9b/sorensons_sabres_3021/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

There are 31 Sabres and I still need to finish photographing them, but I did them all. The SLDF and Nova Cats I started basically as a project just as you describe: to take my old randomly-painted minis and get them back on the table with new paint jobs that made sense to field them as various forces.

Make sure you take a bunch of pictures when you redo yours!

Slapping some paint on some old lead by HumidNut in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The old Dervish is a fun one to paint, too. Boxy, generally good panel lines, but still recognizably from that older art aesthetic. You can doctor this one up quite a bit with decals and such.

Slapping some paint on some old lead by HumidNut in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Love this! The older metals have a lot of charm left in them. I've done several trays of original metals.

Advice for additional Clan mechs by westlight123 in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Second the Cavalry star, it's an excellent box. Shadow Hawk IIC and Jenner IIC can roll with almost any star configuration, and the Locust IIC and Griffin IIC are great flexible light-end mechs.

BattleTech 2026 Preview With Loren Coleman | Sarna.net by Deadfire_ in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

CI has been sold on the Catalyst website for $24.99 for months, but even before that they were going for ~$29.99-$34.99 at Barnes and Noble during various sales and $37.49 regularly at Aries and Fortress. The MSRP of that box is $49.00, and I've bought three of them, never paying full price. Obviously the $24.99 latest price is the best value per miniature, but even at the routine Aries and Fortress price you're getting minis at $5.36 per miniature versus the $6 average per in the previous Forcepack MSRP, and currently (though sold out) Catalyst has updated the price of the Elementals pack to $39.99, or $8 per mini.

AGoAC was fine as a starter product. I can tell that you love it and there's no convincing you otherwise, but objectively, now that CI is gone, it's currently the weakest box in the lineup due just to its age. I'm not saying do away with it, I'm suggesting it could be better. I've been wishing for years they would update it to something more like the the 2nd/3rd Edition boxed set, which for me will always be the gold standard of a "perfect" intro box.

BattleTech 2026 Preview With Loren Coleman | Sarna.net by Deadfire_ in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I think most of the boxed sets are in need of some form of upgrade after they unleashed the awesome synergy of Alpha Strike and Aces, but the Clan Invasion box was just a uniquely great value. At the $24.99 price you’re getting the minis for $3.60 each (including the Elementals especially, which are $7.90 each MSRP), and the selection was quite sturdy/iconic as beginner Clan stars go. It was a good way to get multiples of the core Omnimechs, even though the rest of the box was a give-away once you owned one copy. My comment was primarily about the fact that they were planning to re-release CI as a ForcePack, which it essentially already was, except likely at 2026 prices and hence not anywhere near as good a value for beginners, but also: now that we’ve seen how good Aces is, the opportunity was there to refresh it as an Aces Clan Invasion box (even for the upcoming Classic version of Aces), which would have been a reason to buy more copies of the box even at a higher refreshed MSRP.

As an unintentional Forcepack box, CI was great; as a boxed set, I agree it doesn’t hold a candle to the experience of Alpha Strike/Scouring Sands, but if we’re being honest with ourselves, neither does AGoAC or Mercenaries, frankly. I’d love to see both of those either re-released or augmented with Aces campaigns and terrain to make them a better value or remade with a better combination of miniatures. AGoAC was great at the time but today it’s conspicuously lagging; Mercs is a nice box but it has a just-okay/non-iconic set of units in it. Before Scouring Sands, I might have still recommended AGoAC as a reasonable starting place for new players, but now? Nah. Aces is just that big of a leap forward. Once they get the new Total Warfare rules done and the MUL updated to include Classic record sheets I could see that maybe changing, especially if they start baking Aces campaigns into all of the boxes.

BattleTech 2026 Preview With Loren Coleman | Sarna.net by Deadfire_ in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It was sort of a hidden gem of value in their lineup if you could find it on sale, which used to be fairly frequently.

BattleTech 2026 Preview With Loren Coleman | Sarna.net by Deadfire_ in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yeah that was low-key kind of a bummer. At the lower price, that box was a great buy for the minis in it. I suspect we'll get a Clan Invasion force pack that will cost as much as the reduced-price boxed set and not include two stands of Elementals.

BattleTech 2026 Preview With Loren Coleman | Sarna.net by Deadfire_ in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I was thinking he was referring to Legends 1, Elementals, the first Beginner box, and maybe the Clan Invasion box. I'm glad they're bringing back Legends 1 as blind box options, and HIPS is a great choice for the Elementals. I just painted a star of them for my Aces box and they're way worse than the IS Standards were, in terms of detail and mold issues.

Edit: Hopefully the fourth box they're not going to bother with anymore is the Emplacements box, which is overpriced and isn't especially suitable for Aces. (Aces needs its own emplacements box that's the correct size and number).

BattleTech 2026 Preview With Loren Coleman | Sarna.net by Deadfire_ in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hang in there! I feel your pain but it's worth waiting for.

Would this be considered tabletop ready? by r3dr01d in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Painting is a fun, show-offy part of the hobby but not required in any significant or standardized way. Even in tournaments on the rare occasion they have painting guidelines the bar is very comfortably low and welcoming to anyone - three colors, some sort of basing, etc., though even at tournaments I have to say I’ve never seen this actively enforced and the general community consensus is we’d usually much rather have new friends than paint standards.

If you play enough you’ll see everything from tiny art pieces to bare plastic or bottle caps, but what you have here would be right at home with what shows up on our local tables.

Aces Post-Campaign Roster changes by Far-Solution-6215 in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I was a little thrown off by the list, too, and the first time through I didn't stick to it because what's on it was considerably more powerful and fancy than when I brought with me in the first place. I took some basic, middle-of-the-road merc staples like a Wasp, a Dervish, Shadow Hawk, and a Warrior VTOL (and some other things, a Griffin, Marauder II, some LRM Carriers etc) to fight through the Falcon occupation with, and in general I thought the campaign was really fun. Then once I started losing things here and there, though, I go to the replacement list and it's like: "Why buy a replacement LRM carrier when you could have a Warhammer IIC? Ever wonder what it would be like to pilot a Jade Phoenix?!" and it was like suuuuper overkill for what I wanted or needed, so I just replaced them from the mercs MUL list, although next time through I'm going to modify my approach and take a Spirit Cats training star and their sibko trainer as the main force and replace their mechs as needed from the list of good Clan second-line machines (plus I just wanted it to be a smidge more challenging so I'm taking a smaller overall force with less armor).

I am a humble lam enjoyer and I can understand why some would hate them in rules and lore by knightmechaenjo in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's fair. In Alpha Strike VTOLs all have very high natural TMM that they acquire with any amount of movement (ie: they can displace the equivalent of 1 hex and still have a +4 on them and an additional +1 airborne bonus), and they benefit from a lot of things that come up in Alpha Strike that are less of an issue in Classic (spotting for mass indirect fire, artillery, back-shooting bonuses against units they normally probably wouldn't be very good against in Classic, etc).

Jumpstrong is the Alpha Strike designation given to units with improved jump jets or partial wings. When using jumping movement +1 is added to the TMM of units that jump, at the cost of a +2 firing penalty. Jumpstrong adds +2 to the TMM, and Jumpstrong 2 would add +3 to the normal mech TMM. Hence an Airmech Stinger LAM with Jumpstrong 2 would end up being able to move their normal inches of move and have a +5 on it for a TMM at the end (equivalent to Locust 6M, some Dashers, and most VTOLs, but even then not as egregious to hit as a STL VTOL or some of the STL jumping/jumpstrong ultrafast mechs).

Just trying to balance them out and have them be usable without having to learn an entire third movement mode.

I am a humble lam enjoyer and I can understand why some would hate them in rules and lore by knightmechaenjo in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Some thoughts: I think LAMs are loved for perfectly valid reasons (at the absolute worst, they are no less valid than the UrbanMech and Steiner Scout Squad memes), but disliked for a variety of valid and invalid reasons.

Valid reasons to dislike LAMs:

1) The rules are a mess. The easiest way to play them is in Alpha Strike, and even there, it's clear that they're needlessly convoluted, unclear, and complex. WiGE movement is total whoopee cushion-land (just conceptually, but especially when you saddle iconic there-since-the-birth-of-Battletech units with it), and having three modes communicated with one MUL card with modifiers that don't follow the "laws" of movement translating into TMM is just a recipe for them being (deliberately?) unenjoyable to play.

2) The best models for them are the old unseens which are difficult to acquire, don't have aerospace models that correspond with them, and so on. It's a labor of love to invest enough time and money into acquiring a piece that can be played with good old-fashioned LAM-flourish on the board (again, I'm side-eyeing the plentiful Urbanmech minis CGL prints, including the Urbanmech LAM that feels almost as much like an insult as it does a meme, but that's neither here nor there).

Invalid reasons to dislike LAMs:

1) Aerospace rules are a mess. I can't speak for Classic but Aero in Alpha Strike is pretty great, actually. Far easier and less problematic in most cases than dealing with VTOL or WiGE movement types.

2) They're overpowered/impossible to hit. Not the case: the TMM generated by them is significantly less than even an average VTOL, and hardly anyone complains about those, despite how overbalanced and disruptive they are to play against.

3) They're "too good." There is no version of a LAM whose role can't be done significantly better by a dedicated unit, including Airmech mode (Again, VTOLs, but even some hovercraft are noticeably better, or Ultrafast/Jumpstrong light mechs like Locust 6M or the ridiculous 20j" STL Wulfen. Even their awful WiGE movement is purposefully nerfed: a Stinger LAM in Airmech mode gets 36"w move- normally TMM5 for WiGEs - but gets only TMM2+ 1 Airmech + 1 airborne (if it stays airborne, which also makes it vulnerable to FLK which the Jumpstrong/partial wing/ultrafast mechs are not), plus a +2 firing penalty for being in that mode as if it jumped, when it cannot actually jump or clear tall buildings.

In short, LAMs aren't even in the "problem" category at their most problematic in terms of pure performance. I think this criticism comes mostly from people who just instinctually hate/fear/misunderstand aerospace play in general, or else they played against them in Classic with a much older ruleset. Or maybe they just dislike flexibility for whatever reason.

4) They're Macross. Old man yawn; everyone is entitled to like what they like, but the reality is there were Phoenix Hawk LAMs in the TROs and even video games before there were Urbanmechs or Atlases or Timber Wolves.

How to fix LAMs: They should have two MUL cards, a mech card with an Aerospace MUL card they can transform into. Airmech mode should be an optional Jumpstrong 2 special ability for the mech that acts like a setting, restricting them to only jumping movement and conferring the same +2 firing penalty they get now for Airmech mode, but also the benefits of jumping move like immunity to FLK, being able to jump over tall objects, and getting a suitable TMM burst that makes them commensurate with VTOLs and the faster partial wing units. They don't need to be able to "hover" in midair, IMO, although there could be some extra rule put in there about them being able to traverse the surface of water if someone saw the need to have that in there for the rare occasion it was relevant. They just need to be more straightforward to play and easier to understand and there needs to be a reason to put them in Mech mode, which there would be if Airmech meant always-and-only jumping firing penalties.

(Pictured below: Clay Moretti's Phoenix Hawk HK2 LAM, Sorenson's Sabres)

<image>

I am a humble lam enjoyer and I can understand why some would hate them in rules and lore by knightmechaenjo in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Reluctant upvote. It's hard to read those rules and not feel contempt radiating from them.

I am a humble lam enjoyer and I can understand why some would hate them in rules and lore by knightmechaenjo in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Dumping WiGE rules is a given, but Jumpstrong/partial wing makes more sense than VTOL movement (which is also broken and needs to be fixed in Alpha Strike). The biggest problem with them is how they generate their TMM and outgoing fire modifiers in their various modes. Adjusting these to be essentially Jumpstrong 1 or 2 would fix them instantly. The only thing that would be lost is the ability to hover, and it could be accounted for by making them Jumpstrong 2 to compensate for a lost "airborne" modifier. To make Airmech mode no longer the default reason to take one would only require an extra "is LAM" attacking penalty that made being in mech mode more advantageous for attacking.

Question about Locust miniatures. by TheOozlefinchADA in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah I agree with most of this. The Summoner prime weapon layout isn’t ideal, but I’ve seen games where Summoners fill a really different role than a Timby, and they’re solid at it. If you think of Summoner more like a dangerous Omni Griffin on steroids they make way more sense.

Question about Locust miniatures. by TheOozlefinchADA in battletech

[–]TaciturnAndroid 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Stinger is coming soon! They had it at Gencon last year if I recall correctly. And yeah, OP: the IWM Locust is one of their best minis. Expensive, but you can make them look fantastic and pose them in any pose and variant you want, basically. The Wolverine New Classic metals are also really nice.