What's in the hypothetical future box(set)?

[Kilderkin]

I'm liking the idea of CGL going down the board game route. I know people want a Clan box set, but what 'mechs and scenarios would make up your ideal expansion?

For me the next expansion would be a revisit to the Tales of the Black Widow, possibly the Battle of Hoff, but could be a selection of scenarios from the Black Widow's history. Not only would you be able to play as one of the cooler merc forces, it also includes all the 'mechs we want. Like AGoAC there would be rules, mapsheets and a novella.

Battlemechs in the box:

Warhammer
Marauder
Crusader
Griffin

Archer
Archer
Stinger
Wasp

Stinger
Rifleman
Phoenix Hawk
Wasp << Added to bring it up to a company, this and the Griffin from the beginner box could be used for the super variants.

What would be in your box set?

[Teulisch]

the short story was a good move, putting in-universe fiction where everyone can see it. they could probably use that tactic online to help encourage interest in the game as well, as a sort of advertising for the game line and books.

for mechs in a box, the bigger cost is in the molds. so they have to sell so many boxes to break even, before they can see a profit. the return of the unseen mechs is a big deal in itself, but there are a lot of options. for example, if they included a number of tanks (small, easily explodable tanks) alongside some mechs, say 1 or 2 lances of mechs and 2 or 4 lances of tanks, the smaller size of a tank would make it easier to fit in the box. two tank models, 4 of each, and you could probably do that with one mold (tank body A, tank body B, turret A, turret B). maybe some cardstock buildings, to give a more 3D sense to the map.

I love the marauder but its a pain to assemble. from a logistics viewpoint, the marauder is a bad choice. the last time they did a plastic marauder it had a massive gap down the middle. as much as i would love to see a good plastic marauder, now may not be the time.

it may be a good idea to consider the scorpion as an option. its a fast medium with PPC and SRM, and being a quad it can go hull down like a tank can. throw a couple of those into a box with some tanks, and you can get a very different sort of armored combat.

a boardgame with tanks and giant stompy robots, plus a couple buildings, would be very interesting. you could do a lot with that- attack/defend the building scenario, or just use them for urban cover. throw in a story with a mixed company maybe.

[JPArbiter]

The scorpion is redundant alongside the griffin and Wolverine, and as a box set is suppoused to introduce rules you don’t want to chuck quads and thier esoteric rules in just yet

I do like the idea of a “Remastered” Print on Demand of Tales and more Tales, with scenarios and rules updated for BMM and Chaos Campaign. Toss in Wolf and Blake for grins and cause I like Stacy Church.

Back to the box set issue though. I could see a 2.0 beginners box featuring a Stinger and Wasp (or Ostol and Ostroc) and a 2.0 GoAC with the Archer, Warhammer, Stinger, Wasp, two Phoenix Hawks, Marauder (II) and Stalker.

This lineup covers the same size boxes already in use so you can reprint most of the paper contents and get more NuSeens out in the market.

[Sartris]

I’ll have to think a bit more about the actual contents I’d like but the selection is important because you’re picking what gets new art and sculpts.

[StoneRhino]

Scenarios. Scenarios. Scenarios. Its nice to get a new box of something, but what do you do from there? How many times have we seen a new player show up and ask "now what?" or "How should I split these minis up into equal forces for us to use in a game?"

Fiction is nice, but not everyone gives half a damn about the fiction of a game until they get into it. Now using scenarios to bridge the game to the fiction and vice versa for those fluff lovers would help. They don't even need to print it out, just add a line or two about how to find more, which could be the online shop with all of the older scenario books, but also a few more that would be offered for free on the website.

As for the minis, those are the ones that You want. I don't really care for the 3025 unseens. The Unseen IICs and for Victor Musical Industries are the ones that I care about. That would push the game into the Clan Invasion, which is something I think needs to be pushed quickly so that players have a chance to go all grognard if they want, but also move into vast majority of the game without creating a fear of additional weapons.

A vehicle and infantry expansion would be nice to see. Getting people to go into TW instead of the mechmanual is what I would prefer to see. All mech games do nothing to show why anyone would give a damn about a mech beyond rule of cool. A mech in a purely mech game is nothing more then a tank that can kick or punch. The slight differences between the two helps to show why anyone would want a mech, and that is without making the tank designs absolute garbage with paper thin armor or rules designed to make them pop when hit with a single inferno srm.

I remember the ol CCG, where we got a little rulesbook in each starter box. We learned to play the game from that. GW used small rules book in their boxed sets and nobody seemed to complain. For an expansion box, small rules books might be the way to go to keep print costs down.

Everyone mentions the costs of new molds, but nobody ever connects new molds to player demands. If CGL ever wanted to put out new molds they could fund it by doing preorders with the minis tossed into a plain box. The established playerbase's early adopters would help reduce the investment cost of a new mold. That reduces the need to fund the mold and the boxed set that it is going into. These are effectively assured sales + potential sales= reduced risk = good for business. You basically recover the money that you would have invested by X% from the start with players investing in the molds instead of CGL investing 100% and then waiting to make enough sales to recover their investment before they can profit. This also reduces the demand for the boxed sets, meaning you reduce printing costs by satisfying the established player base's want of new minis. That leaves more boxes for the shelves so that new players can purchase them. Older players will still buy some, I'd likely buy 2 if I can as I would want one for full contents, while another for collection purposes. Beyond that, I would buy the minis on their own without the added costs of the redundant printed materials.

[Bosefius]

The title of this thread has been changed to reflect that it is a conversation of a future, hypothetical product, not either of the current, in-print box sets. This room prevent confusion from anyone trying to find intention about the current product.

[VensersRevenge]

While I don't disagree that moving people into the Clan Invasion era is the ideal, I think that new Warhammers and Marauders are going to be an important part of doing so. The simple fact is that the original Unseen are the Mechs that are consistently given new variants for each era advance. So if a player wants to play in the Succession Wars, the Star League, or the Dark Age, they can use a Warhammer. They can't use a Raijin.

[Sartris]

While I don't disagree that moving people into the Clan Invasion era is the ideal, I think that new Warhammers and Marauders are going to be an important part of doing so. The simple fact is that the original Unseen are the Mechs that are consistently given new variants for each era advance. So if a player wants to play in the Succession Wars, the Star League, or the Dark Age, they can use a Warhammer. They can't use a Raijin.

If they have the ability to include any unseen/classics they would be foolish not to. Doing so has not only close universal playability, but the broadest possible appeal to customers.

“We could have given you a Warhammer, but have this Thunder instead!”

[carlisimo]

They’ve shown unseen prototypes, right?  It’d be crazy if they didn’t get released.

[Sartris]

the warhammer prototype was at gencon a few years ago and appeared in Combat Manual: Mercenaries. the opaqueness of the legal settlement with HG makes it impossible to know exactly what, or combination of whats, is holding up the process. i assume tptb are aware that releasing the macross classics is akin to printing money and would like to release them at best possible speed.

[VensersRevenge]

If they have the ability to include any unseen/classics they would be foolish not to. Doing so has not only close universal playability, but the broadest possible appeal to customers.

“We could have given you a Warhammer, but have this Thunder instead!”

Exactly. I was replying to StoneRhino's argument that the focus on Unseen is the wrong way to move the new player experience forward in the timeline.

[nckestrel]

Exactly. I was replying to StoneRhino's argument that the focus on Unseen is the wrong way to move the new player experience forward in the timeline.

We just need the Unseen in the future.

[Kilderkin]

I just want to see Battletech play to it’s strengths, which is the lore rich universe. Plus it’s an opportunity to go back and update some old scenarios and stories. The pilot cards are an ace touch too and add some RP elements to games.

I know people would be happy with box sets of new mechs. But it doesn’t quite have the same punch as a fully formed expansion with new maps ect.

[BloodRose]

I will add my +1 for a boxset containing vehicles. Vehicles add depth to BT and allow for a variety of tactics and scenarios that ordinary Mechs do not allow. Even with the additional weaknesses Vehicles can also have interesting strengths. They can slip through Height-1 tunnels and hide behind Level 1 terrain, Hovercraft can skim across a lake or river and launch surprise flank attacks as VTOL's play peak-a-boo and drop off infantry platoons in awkward locations. Massed tanks are cheap and can be deadly against a cocky Mechwarrior and LRM and SRM carriers are monsters in a field of their own.
A box of 4 Mechs and 2 - 8 vehicles/platoons of Infantry would be a good way to go. As for the Mechs they should be a good mix, none of this Assault madness we had in the Alpha Strike boxes. Maybe an average of 225 - 240 tons of Mechs per box, with some going above and others below? Something like:
>Centurion
>Wolverine
>Shadowhawk
>Dragon
with
>4 Patton/Rommel tanks
>4 Scimitar Hover tanks
>2 LRM carriers

or

>Warhammer
>Wolverine
>Griffon
>Hunchback
and
>6 APC's/Goblins
>3 platoons of Infantry (1 SRM/2 MG)
>2 Von Luckner Heavy Tanks
>2 Karnov gunships

Or something like that. A small mixed force in a box that will give a player a nice starting point for their own force or boost them on from the box sets.

[VensersRevenge]

The point of the box sets is to get people excited to play Battletech, a game about Mechs fighting each other. Therefore exciting Mechs should be included to make people want to buy the sets. Whether having an Atlas in the box set for new players represents a reasonable distribution of assault Mechs in the universe or not is, in my opinion, irrelevant. The fact that the Atlas is big, intimidating, and looks cool is. Box sets should not be based on adhering to the standards of in universe rarity (which is only really true in one part of the timeline anyway) because the players unit is by definition special. Give players, particularly players who know little to nothing about the universe, Mechs they would be excited to play with.

[BloodRose]

But at the same time should not the boxes be a good basis for a starting force? The old Skaven battalions had Ratogres in, two of them. Ratogres were cool and six or even ten would have been amazing but two was enough to be exciting and still leave room for the clanrats you needed as well.
Mechs are cool too, but what is cooler than Mech-on-Mech conflict? How about having some squishies for your mechs to stomp all over, some tanks for them to blow up? And then when you get into the game proper you find you have your Mechs and a core of combat vehicles and infantry to form a solid basis for your collection. You can expand and build outwards on the base you bought because you liked the idea of Mechs fighting tanks and winning.

[VensersRevenge]

Except that isn't really how Battletech is presented. Until the HBS game came out last year, the only video game version of Battletech was MWO. Which is entirely Mech only. So for years the only way into Battletech was through a game that portrayed it as small unit skirmishes of Mechs. Which is also how the current in print rulebook, the BattleMech Manual, presents the game. And comparing Battletch to Warhammer is fallacious, because Battletech has no official army building mechanics. a list of all ratogres is illegal in WHFB, but I could go to a game with only Atlases and that would be just as valid of a force as your combined arms force. The boxes are a good basis for a starting force with what they include currently, and arguably are a better basis than if they added infantry because they teach the primary rules of the game most players spend the vast majority of their playtime using.

[Colt Ward]

VR is right, if you using a box to build on what was released you do it by advancing the time line and just adding a smaller portion of the rules- SL/Clan equipment.

Marauder
Warhammer
Phoenix Hawk
Wasp

Dire Wolf
Timberwolf
Summoner
Stormcrow
Elemental Point

Plus a new map, invasion fiction- either new or a BC story, and a trimmed down ER3052 (ER3052 Lite?).

[Greatclub]

Clan mechs are expensive in terms of BPV. 'Adder costs more than an Atlas' levels of stupid expensive. If the clan box is going to be anything resembling balanced against IS boxes, it's not going to contain Dire Wolf. It might contain a Vulture or a Thor at most, and be mostly lights & mediums.

Dasher
Uller
Dragonfly
Ryoken
Thor

That's the kind of clan box I'd expect to see. It might not win against the current beginner box, but it certainly would leave a few dented.

[SteelRaven]

If your going to have a Clan Box, it's going to have a Timber Wolf. Can't really build a Clan box based on how the forces would pair against the IS box though that may be why we won't see one in the immediate future.

If the Beginners Box is successful enough, I can see it becoming sort of a 'vs' series of Box sets with 2X mechs and 2X Maps a box.

Marauder vs Orion, Warhammer vs Archer/Grasshopper, Rifleman vs Dragon, ect.

The Beginners Box would have to be selling crazy good though for that to be financially sound otherwise multiple boxes would bring us back to the Lance Pack problem of a bunch of great boxes sitting in a warehouse. 




 

[Geont]

What I would love to see is probably something akin 2vs1 (2 lances vs 1 star). Basically bigger AGoAC box with more miniatures. Of course, the price would go up too. But from I have seen 13 miniatures will have a problem to fit into the current box format. The only possible solution that I can think of is changing the position of AS&pilots cards or combining them into one position.

[Sigil]

CGL continues to push the BattleTech timeline forward, most recently with Shattered Fortress.  In addition, the long awaited ilClan sourcebook should materialize this year and Jennifer Brozek is writing a new fictional work set in the "aftermath of the Age of Destruction."  After a long hiatus during which CGL essentially fleshed out the Jihad in order to connect two disparate eras (Civil War and Dark Age), they appear ready to focus on the future.

While I certainly appreciate the new box set, it is essentially the same product as the one released in 1992, updated for the times, sure, but with fewer plastic miniatures.  As for a "Clan Invasion" box set, that was essentially released two years later, in '94 as the second edition of the CityTech set, which contained the rules for the advanced equipment as well as a selection of both Inner Sphere and Clan plastic BattleMech miniatures.  The '07 and '11 box sets were also essentially backwards looking, featuring a vast array of units from the original 1986 TRO: 3025.

The next box set should be set in, and introduce new and current players to, the *current* BattleTech era.

[Geont]

...

I think that is a too big step to do after releasing 3025 boxes. Although I understand your feelings about this. But the difference between new boxes and this hypothetical 3150 box would be too big. There would be a missing product that would connect them. Clan invasion era is a much better continuation for boxes than an end of Dark Age era.

[Sartris]

Also the clan invasion doesn’t feature eight different medium lasers.

How would one propose a 3150 beginner box keeping in mind the clear perogotive to keep the box strictly introtech? There were combined arms elements and advanced tech in the previous box that were conspicuously removed from the most current release. How would one further propose to bridge that box into the reality of TRO 3145/50?

[Kibutsu]

I think they should reboot the Reinforcements concept and issue lance sized boxes of redesigned minis along with the AS cards and a small technical readout. We are probably not going to see the Macross unseens until HG loses the license, but there are plenty of other designs that could use a refresh in the style of the new plastics from the boxed sets.

Panther
Jenner
Assassin
Enforcer
Blackjack
Dragon
Hunchback
Dervish
Atlas
Cyclops
Zeus

And others, of course. Maybe do them by faction, or maybe move the timeline up to 3039 and throw in a Mauler or Cataphract. Maybe have a Scorpion to introduce new players to quads. I think part of the reason the AS plastic lance packs didn't sell that well was because the sculpts were essentially the exact same that were released in metal 30 years prior, which veteran players already owned. Speaking from experience, the player group in my shop had little to no history with BattleTech but after our AS campaign began the guys jumped all over those lance packs and bought everything the shop had, plus all the restocks, then scoured the internet re-sellers for more. And that was all without a starter set to get the ball rolling. The market is there and waiting, but it won't wait long.

[VensersRevenge]

The next box set should be set in, and introduce new and current players to, the *current* BattleTech era.

I don't disagree that Battletech should look forwards, but other than the technology/complicated rules issue others have brought up, there is one other issue with setting the box set beyond early Clan Invasion. Backwards compatibility. I can use the Thunderbolt in the current box set in literally every era of battletech that currently exists, and probably will get to use a new upgraded version of it after the IlClan. A Shattered Fortress box set containing say, a Vulpes, only works in the Dark Age era and maybe beyond. The Classics, most other 3025 designs, and the original OmniMechs are probably always going to have modernized versions, so the box sets should foocus on them to allow for as broad of a usage as possible.

[Colt Ward]

Yup, as VR just said you are picking something with the broadest appeal and the broadest timeline application.  Greatclub, your Adder Prime (2083 4/5) vs Atlas BV (7-K 2175) analogy would apply with a Clan regular pilot but the Clan Omni does not have to start at that BV.  Personally I would include the sheet for the Adder D (1255 @ 4/5) rather than a Prime simply b/c of that BV nature and to be more forgiving on the heat- IF you went with a Adder.

In addition, the four Clan mechs I picked are all prominent in the video games.  The Viper and Fire Moth are not in the video games (MW3, MW4, MC1/2, and afaik MWO) though while the Kit Fox is, its not looked at too fondly b/c its a 30t.  Dire Wolf, Timberwolf, Summoner and Stormcrow are iconic for the Clan Invasion and were used by all of the Invaders to one degree or another.

[Sartris]

fwiw, anthony scroggins is currently in the process of remastering the clan invasion omni art on his patreon (shadow cat, summoner, dire wolf, and a teaser of a timber wolf that i think will be similar to the one on the cover of forever faithful). with TRO: Clan Invasion coming soon™, i don't think it's a coincidence. while skewed on the heavy side, it's only what he's showing and not necessarily all of what he and others are working on.

if they want to nudge people from the succession wars into the clan invasion, a TRO with at least some reimagined art and a clan box would go a long way in helping people along. i've long held that the reconfiguration of the line at the base level constitutes a soft reboot to focus on the late succession wars and clan invasion (that arguably started with the temporal positioning of the combat manuals). The timeline moves forward independently of the beginner products, not least of which because the people who want to see ilclan are really vocal about wanting to see ilclan.

i think we would be better-severed picking one or the other but it's not my money.

[carlisimo]

I don't disagree that Battletech should look forwards, but other than the technology/complicated rules issue others have brought up, there is one other issue with setting the box set beyond early Clan Invasion. Backwards compatibility. I can use the Thunderbolt in the current box set in literally every era of battletech that currently exists, and probably will get to use a new upgraded version of it after the IlClan. A Shattered Fortress box set containing say, a Vulpes, only works in the Dark Age era and maybe beyond. The Classics, most other 3025 designs, and the original OmniMechs are probably always going to have modernized versions, so the box sets should foocus on them to allow for as broad of a usage as possible.

Agreed.

But I'd be comfortable with starter boxes including 3025 and 3150 record sheets for the minis provided.  They might need to be different colors or something else that's pretty obvious.

[Sigil]

Also the clan invasion doesn’t feature eight different medium lasers.

How would one propose a 3150 beginner box keeping in mind the clear perogotive to keep the box strictly introtech? There were combined arms elements and advanced tech in the previous box that were conspicuously removed from the most current release. How would one further propose to bridge that box into the reality of TRO 3145/50?

A lot has been made of the complexity of the Dark Age.  From my perspective, unless you customizing or designing entirely new units, all the information needed to play is on the provided record sheet.  Even if there are "eight different medium lasers", if the heat, range and damage is on the record sheet, how does that make it more complex?  When playing off the provided sheet, what do the behind the scenes mechanics of XL Gyros or Partial Wings matter?  As an introduction, the focus is on the mechanics of movement, line-of-sight, attack and heat.  So what if one 'Mech has a Medium Pulse Laser and another has an ER Medium Laser?  I don't see it as an insurmountable issue.

For example, swap out the Shadow Hawk and Wolverine for a Ghost and a Shockwave.  I promise, it won't be the end of the world.