New and Upcoming Releases Volume XII: Baker's Dozen

[NeonKnight]

I may be in a minority here, but I think any record sheet product should be PDF/Electronic first, hard copy second.

It just makes financial sense to me. I can keep all record sheets on a small USB, and print as needed darn near anywhere, even at a hotel or something, one can often find someone willing for a $1 or 2 to print out something if you help them.

But carrying around 20 books and then finding someone to photocopy, little harder.

And as stated, most people do not have a Photocopier in their house, but nearly everyone has a printer, or easier access to a printer versus a photocopier.

So, while I am the kind of person who greatly prefers Dead-Tree-Format over electronic any day of the week, I much more prefer my record sheets electronic.

Of Course, I would LUV a good Mech-Maker program ala SkunkWerks/Heavy Metal Pro, etc, but at this stage in the game, that seems to be more a pipe dream than anything.

[BiggRigg42]

I may be in a minority here, but I think any record sheet product should be PDF/Electronic first, hard copy second.

It just makes financial sense to me. I can keep all record sheets on a small USB, and print as needed darn near anywhere, even at a hotel or something, one can often find someone willing for a $1 or 2 to print out something if you help them.

But carrying around 20 books and then finding someone to photocopy, little harder.

And as stated, most people do not have a Photocopier in their house, but nearly everyone has a printer, or easier access to a printer versus a photocopier.

So, while I am the kind of person who greatly prefers Dead-Tree-Format over electronic any day of the week, I much more prefer my record sheets electronic.

Of Course, I would LUV a good Mech-Maker program ala SkunkWerks/Heavy Metal Pro, etc, but at this stage in the game, that seems to be more a pipe dream than anything.

I agree with the above; it is easier to print stuff off from a PDF than to make a photocopy. Downloadable PDFs are great for this game, especially for 'mech sheets and maps. One X-mas, My cousin and I were at our grandparents house for a week with nothing to do. It was easy for us to start a BattleTech campaign using only the CGL online store. We bought and downloaded some map sheets, 'mech sheets, and the Sword & Dragon Starter Book. After taking the 2d6 from a back gammon set and using coins or chess/checkers pieces as mech proxies, my cousin and I were able to go through the entire Sword & Dragon Starter Book. This was my cousin's intro into BattleTech.


In sum, I don't even see a need for hard copies of some BattleTech materials. 

[SteelRaven]

I agree with the above; it is easier to print stuff off from a PDF than to make a photocopy. Downloadable PDFs are great for this game, especially for Mech sheets and maps. One X-mas, My cousin and I were at our grandparents house for a week with nothing to do. It was easy for us to start a BattleTech campaign using only the CGL online store. We bought and downloaded some map sheets, 'mech sheets, and the Sword & Dragon Starter Book. After taking the 2d6 from a back gammon set and using coins or chess/checkers pieces as mech proxies, my cousin and I were able to go through the entire Sword & Dragon Starter Book. This was my cousin's intro into BattleTech.


In sum, I don't even see a need for hard copies of some BattleTech materials.

This

[Lorcan Nagle]

I didn't play in the day, what would a new CityTech book include? What would make it stand out compared to up and coming starter and regular boxes?

CityTech 1st edition contained a rulebook that had the core BattleTech rules plus roads, buildings, rubble, vehicles and infantry.  It redesignated the Autocannon to the AC/5 and added the 2,10 and 20.  It had stats for the following mech deisgns: Archer, Crusader, Hunchback, Marauder, Ostroc, Ostscout, Ostsol, Rifleman, Shadow Hawk, Spider, Stalker, and Warhammer.  It also has stats for the following vehicles: Condor, Demolisher, Hunter, J. Edgar, Vedette, Wheeled Scout.  Like the Merlin is the example for BattleMech construction at this point, a hovertank called the Falcon is used as an example. 

In terms of bits it had two copies of the CityTech map, counter sheets with buildings, mechs, vehicles, infantry and faction insignia, and the plastic standees and straight-edges common in BattleTech sets of the day.

CityTech 2nd edition also had rules for roads, buildings, rubble, vehicles and infantry, but added Star League and Clan technology (though some advanced systems such as C3 are omitted).  Mech stats are the 3050 versions of the Javelin, Centurion, Orion, and Victor, and the Prime models of the Uller, Black Hawk, Mad Cat and Daishi.  Vehicles statted are Condor, Hetzer, and Demolisher.

Included in the box are 2 awful minis for each of the 8 mechs, 2 of the CityTech map, and counter sheets including buildings, vehicles and infantry.

[GreenSpectre]

Strat Ops hasn't updated in Drivethru,  Tac Ops and Total Warfare have, and I still have  the older versions available in my library!  Great!  But I'm the type that will have to get the updated hardcovers!  I wonder what to do with my older ones 8)


I guess I need to read everything!!  Strat Ops updat is still in the works. 

[Xotl]

StratOps isn't done yet.  There are more extensive changes to that one, so it's taking longer.

[Daryk]

StratOps isn't done yet.  There are more extensive changes to that one, so it's taking longer.

Keeping my fingers crossed for a fix to the Small Craft vertical take off and landing rules...

[M-Rex]

To celebrate the imminent release of the BattleTech Beginner Box and BattleTech: A Game of Armored Combat boxed sets, the release of Harebrained Schemes' BATTLETECH, as well as Piranha Games hotly-anticipated MechWarrior 5, new printings of the core BattleTech rulebooks are now available in PDF from the Catalyst Game Labs store.

The PDFs feature fully-updated errata and vintage artwork covers! As each of the core rulebooks are reprinted, they'll receive a vintage cover to celebrate the wonderful history of the BattleTech universe. Each represents the most up-to-date, polished version of the essential BattleTech rules.

Any customers who previously purchased these PDFs will receive an e-mail notification enabling them to download these updated printings.

The classic artwork gracing the covers of these products appears below. The line includes:

• Total Warfare, the core BattleTech rulebook. Following the book's print debut at Origins Game Fair and Gen Con, pre-orders for the print edition are now available, with an expected street date of August 22, 2018. (ARTIST: Les Dorscheid; First Publication: BattleTech Manual, 1987.)
• TechManual, the core construction rulebook allowing players to create their own exciting units for unique BattleTech games. A companion volume to Total Warfare, TechManual provides construction rules for tournament-legal units, as well as core weaponry and equipment and the newest, bleeding edge technologies. (ARTIST: Doug Chafee; First Publication, Tactical Handbook, 1994.)
• Tactical Operations, the advanced rules that apply to on-world operations. It includes new movement and combat options, an extensive Advanced Weapons and Equipment section, and the rules for playing and constructing advanced Support Vehicles and Mobile Structures. (ARTIST: Doug Chaffee; First Publication, CityTech, Second Edition boxed set, 1994.)
  Note: the hard-copy availability of the new printings of Tactical Operations and TechManual has not been determined.

A fully-updated errata PDF of Strategic Operations, the advanced rules for aerospace combat and solar system-level campaigns, is in the works. (ARTIST: Steve Venters; First Publication: BattleForce Box Set, 1987.)

The PDFs are priced at $15 each, and are available now.

     

Now THIS is epic cool!

Thank you!

[Liam's Ghost]

So should we have gotten our update email by now? Because I've got nothing.

[Wrangler]

StratOps isn't done yet.  There are more extensive changes to that one, so it's taking longer.

Alot of errants or you guys changing it more significantly than the original.  The cover art doesn't quite fit the theme of space related rules in there with Advance Battleforce rules in it.  Wasn't Interstellar Operations effectively covering that stuff anyways?

[Sartris]

So should we have gotten our update email by now? Because I've got nothing.

same

edit: is this a new/old store glitch again? i'm pretty certain i bought the pdfs of the first four rulebooks on the old store
edit2: old purchase links lead to previous printings

[Liam's Ghost]

edit: is this a new/old store glitch again? i'm pretty certain i bought the pdfs of the first four rulebooks on the old store

Also same. If I go to my downloads, I can still download the earlier versions of the rulebooks, but not the current ones with new art.

[Xotl]

Alot of errants or you guys changing it more significantly than the original.  The cover art doesn't quite fit the theme of space related rules in there with Advance Battleforce rules in it.  Wasn't Interstellar Operations effectively covering that stuff anyways?

Not a lot of spot errata, since the book is more edge case than the others, but bigger structural issues.  We're ripping out the Quick Strike section since Alpha Strike has completely superceded it, needed to radically update Battleforce to take into account all the changes Alpha Strike has brought in, and had to redo a lot of the quirks to bring them up to the BMM standard.  That changes the index and ToC, and so add the usual bits of errata on top of that and you have quite the layout headache.

[Bedwyr]

Alot of errants or you guys changing it more significantly than the original.  The cover art doesn't quite fit the theme of space related rules in there with Advance Battleforce rules in it.  Wasn't Interstellar Operations effectively covering that stuff anyways?

That staging of the game had a dual-role. Part was getting warships and jumpships into the mix, but part was also getting up to the regimental level, a legacy of Battleforce 2 which followed up Battleforce 1 which had that image on it. So it does make sense, just that the ground part took precedence this time over the space part where the previous edition had Stone's Lament fighting in microgravity on big ships.

[Bedwyr]

You know, the more I look at the covers, the more I like them and the effect they bring to the series and the more I don't think it'll affect newbies all that much.

[Tyler Jorgensson]

Flashpoint: Lyran Guards Recon company vs Clan Ghost Bear Infantry detachment.

Twelve Atlases and 150 Elemental points.

Did people miss this joke? Surely the Ghost Bears don't need 150 Elementals for 12 Atlases. They fight at a one to one ratio so the pack would only need to come with 12 Elementals....

[Charistoph]

Did people miss this joke? Surely the Ghost Bears don't need 150 Elementals for 12 Atlases. They fight at a one to one ratio so the pack would only need to come with 12 Elementals....

No, it would be Point to Point, so 60 Elementals to 12 Atlases, to start.  Then bid down to 12 Elementals outside of armor.

[Sartris]

Did people miss this joke? Surely the Ghost Bears don't need 150 Elementals for 12 Atlases. They fight at a one to one ratio so the pack would only need to come with 12 Elementals....

“cause I don't know how many of them it would have taken to whip my ass, but I knew how many they were going to use”

[Fear Factory]

Which I'm doing as well. But I have good reasons for voicing them, especially including previous PTB comments. Some may be wrong but I'll bet you a hundred dollars I got more right than wrong.


Don't discount box sets out of hand, just as you shouldn't embrace them out of the gate. That's why I phrased it the way I did. You as the show-runner at Catalyst can marshal funding to execute expansion boxes. But you have to know that your expertise is in books and you know that you can get those out the door quicker and generate cash flow. Game box design uses a different skill set. It's an expertise (like the back-and-forth of modeling, fabrication, proofing, and final approval with a factory whose culture and language you may not understand) you can commit to gaining, but at a much higher, maybe existential, risk.

So the way I'd phrase things is "Box expansions are very high risk and difficult to execute but ultimately worth it over doing a book line because..."

Or "I think CGL should get things going again with book lines and hold box expansions in reserve until they have a better idea of market potential because..."

Both are valid but what I'm doing is using those resource inferences as grounds to speculate about what I'd do, adding that there's risk I might very well be wrong.

I'll note that the way I'm talking about this is coming from a lot of my academic writing where I have to get my ducks in a row and speak carefully and cautiously or else reviewers will rip me a new one. :)

All of my snarkiness aside, I hope that these books and boxes sell.  Catalyst does release quality content, but man, I really hope they become steady on releasing content.  Momentum is important.

[Drewbacca]

In a niche industry like the gaming industry a well thought put product that has been tested and re-tested is always a better bet than a steady stream of products regardless of the size of the company. I can think of two examples right off the top of my head of when getting products out as soon as possible resulted in low quality products and those were from two much larger companies.

[Bedwyr]

In the abstract those are very good points. However in this context I disagree for two reasons. One is that the products already largely exist (or where they don’t they are being edited with care as is the case with Strat Ops). The second is that the exercise is intended to a) show willing (“we are moving the product line again at long last”) and b) generate cash flow.

[The_Livewire]

Also same. If I go to my downloads, I can still download the earlier versions of the rulebooks, but not the current ones with new art.

Same for me on the Catalyst Gamestore, already sent e-mails.

[captnmartin]

BUT... those shiny new minis, gorgeous though they may be, are not required to play Battletech.  Unless CGL changes the rules to require their use, minis are not an essential element of the game.  Maps are required. Record sheets are required.  Rules and dice are required.

Technically no, the rules allow for non-map play pretty easily.

I think a sourced battlemech record sheet generator would be a good start.  The Master Unit List for example, why not have printable record sheets from there?  It's already being used that way for Alpha Strike, wouldn't it make sense to just give everyone access to record sheets for canon designs, especially new players who might not know about HMP SSW or MMD?

I wouldn't mind more themed dice, I liked the faction sets from GF9.

I think the core thing is to push the introbox, keep the Battlemech Manual at the forefront as THE ruleset, and make TW/TM/TO/SO/IO be the addons.  BMM was the best thing to happen in a long time, as the core 'mech combat was covered well, and the tables assembled in a way that made a lot of sense.  It is THE resource to use on a table currently, when introducing new players to the game.  And the coverart feels fresh and looks cool, which unfortunately, I feel the new covers for the addons do not.

As to minis, yeah, a line of plastics that you could buy WITHOUT having to shell out for intro boxes or game boxes would probably fly off the shelves for veterans.  Looking at FoW or other mini games, the box sets of miniatures are a cash cow.

Hopefully the momentum HBS generated for the line can keep going into 2019, and Cat amazes us all with the new sets.

2019, ClassyTech rising.

[nckestrel]

I think a sourced battlemech record sheet generator would be a good start.  The Master Unit List for example, why not have printable record sheets from there?  It's already being used that way for Alpha Strike, wouldn't it make sense to just give everyone access to record sheets for canon designs, especially new players who might not know about HMP SSW or MMD?

Definitely. 
As usual, the problem isn't ideas, its how to implement. Skilled volunteer work can only do so much (and the work already done on the MUL is immense) before it gets burned out. And free products don't generate money to pay for non-volunteer work.

[captnmartin]

And free products don't generate money to pay for non-volunteer work.

Well, they do generate good will, and retention of players.  That in itself is a kind of currency, larger fanbase leads in theory to greater consumption of new products.  You'd have to run a business analysis on it of course, how much profit did the Record Sheets generate vs the cost to publish them?  Were veteran players really buying them, or were they gravitating to SSW and MMD to print them themselves?

You are of course right on implementation, I am assuming there would be some reciprocity to any volunteers who helped out generating the data for the MUL.

[ActionButler]

Well, they do generate good will, and retention of players.

While true, unfortunately, good will doesn't pay the bills.  Once payers have bought the intro boxes and other assorted rules, CGL needs other products to generate an income flow.  If they can spin up their own branch of plastic minis, great, that may be enough right there, but I have seen precious little talk of new Lance Packs. 

the rules allow for non-map play pretty easily.

Also very true, but every single measurement and rule in the standard game is defaulted to hexes.  Non-map play, while very fun and more visually impactful, is very much the alternative method. 

[Colt Ward]

RE:  Record Sheets-

While true, unfortunately, good will doesn't pay the bills.  Once payers have bought the intro boxes and other assorted rules, CGL needs other products to generate an income flow.  If they can spin up their own branch of plastic minis, great, that may be enough right there, but I have seen precious little talk of new Lance Packs. 

You are right . . . free sheets does not get cash flow going to CGL . . . which is IMO why we have the backlog of RS from TROs.  Honestly, with everything that is out there- Heavy Metal being old official, MML and SSW, the BA spreadsheet and all the other tools, I think releasing RS was a money loser.  Not sure releasing recordsheets outside of 'ready to play' boxes is a good idea.  I know HMP and its suite is out of date, but I still print my sheets out on that with the updated weapons files and for things that it does not cover I leave the crits/weight empty and put in notes.

IMO it might be time to admit they do not want to do RS any more, give me the raw stats so I can fill out that Juliano with Clan ERLL I have been waiting to use and in the future with TROs put in the simple report at the back where people with the programs- or filling a sheet out by hand!- can make the sheet for their play.  By all means, find someone who wants to write the latest licensed RS producing software- I would buy that to update from HMP- but I think print RS might be a dodo.

[Liam's Ghost]

Same for me on the Catalyst Gamestore, already sent e-mails.

Who do I need to email about this?

[Sartris]

We’re never seeing omnibus print RS books again. They tried a new player product more recently for most of the TROs. Each had scenarios, rules, and an RS for each unit in the TRO. Guessing they didn’t meet sales expectations as they never even bothered making one for ‘67 or 3145/50.

I’d guess that unless an official unit designer falls into TPTB’s collective lap, we’re not going to get “unabridged” RS books any more either. Hell, they haven’t even added the balance of the existing volumes to their own store. I’m guessing 3145u was largely possible because the RS set was pulled from the backs of the 3145 faction TROs. That’s how we’re likely only to get official RS in any quantity - as additions to other products.
 

[Kit deSummersville]

Who do I need to email about this?

See here.