Long time (aka old, since 1988) Battletech fan here. The new Shrapnel magazines have been excellent in content and are the equivalent of Battletechnology, which IMO was the best BT related magazine style publication released. Shrapnel 6 continues this tradition, and it does something that I think some fans miss about BT which Faith pointed out in her first post:
relatability.
Sharpnel's stories make the giant stompy robot action human. Many of FASA's supplements and novels often missed this point, since they had to continue the overall metaplot while giving us Mechs shooting each other. The ones that do favor a more character/human driven viewpoint often end up being criticized for lacking sweeping action or expanding the story. Examples include Far Country, Ideal War, some of the later Mechwarrior novels, and even Main Event/D.R.T. I always thought that was a shame. At the end of the day, Battletech is about people in a galaxy where "limited" war is legally setup as the primary way to solve a conflict. How people react to that is as important as any 300 page novel of "Liao beats Wolf with stealth armor" could be.
I want to conclude by something that doesn't happen nearly enough to Catalyst, FanPro, Wizkids and FASA and their support teams, both formal and informal: Thanks. Please continue to produce great content for a universe that people love to experience, and remember we'll always be here to support you no matter how many Mech designs get added to the universe. Now where is that Centurion Maximus?
