So finally backed at the Star Colonel level. I'm just going to document the thought process on how I got to this decision.. in case anyone wants to question my insanity.
Firstly, I knew there are certain mechs that I want to get duplicates for, so for those packs containing these, I would want to use the Double Forces feature to maximize. I definitely want duplicates of Warhammers, Marauders, Orions and Panthers, so those Mech Packs will have priority.
However, I do want to support my LGS, and in terms of retail ops, the most likely item to stock would be the primary boxes, so even though I'd want duplicates of the Mad Cat, I would probably get an extra Clan Invasion Box from my LGS -- so no need for me to add that to my pledge. There are also other boxes which I had very little interest in (e.g., the IS Berserker Lance or the Clan Light Fire Star) -- I'd eventually pick that up through my LGS.
So by doing my inventory needs, I basically narrowed down to 5~7 mech packs that have mechs that I want duplicates for. For the initial pledge, I went with 2 Clan packs and 3 Inner Sphere; I also figured out the Star Colonel level had one extra Double Forces choice, so I went with a Inner Sphere pack.
That meant for the initial, I would get 25 Clan Mechs and 32 Inner Sphere Mechs... except each Inner Sphere pack in the pledge comes with a Salvage box (total 8), and the Star Colonel gets 2, which adds up to another 10 Clan Mechs, so 35 Clan and 16 Inner Sphere
So that sorts out the basic pledge level, and then I went back over the list of mechs and pick up additional mech packs that I want for; that adds 1 Clan and 2 IS mech packs. I also want to pick up 2 Elemental Stars, so that gets added.
So I end up with 40 Clan mechs (5 of which are Second Line) and 2 Elemental Stars, which works up to be a short Cluster (2 Trinary and a Binary with Elemental support). That's quite reasonable as a starting point. in terms of tonnage spread it's got issues:
Light 9
Medium 7
Heavy 5
Assault 9
Not too happy about the "bookends", but these don't include the blind draw Salvages, so with a bit of luck I would fill in the lack of Heavys. A bit concerned about the lack of 65 tonners since I didn't go for either the Lokis or Cauldron Borns, but I think that would rectify with time.
For the Inner Sphere, I already have 2 of each of the Intro and AGOAC box. Adding the 40 Mechs I'm pledged for, that brings it to a total of 60 of the new plastic sculpts. Tonnage spread is much more pleasant:
Light 16
Medium 16
Heavy 18
Assault 10
I'm much happier with the Heavy spread since I went with a good number of 65~75 tonners as line holders. So overall quite happy with the stuff I'm going for.
As for the extra stuff, the only thing I might be interested in is the Strana Mechty battlemat, but there's a question there -- there's some talk about Star Colonels getting one by default, which doesn't seem to be reflected anywhere "official" that I've looked. Can anyone confirm? If it is, I'd end up getting one (plus the case) since I might as well have a proper Circle of Equals.
Other than that, the question I have is whether the extra stuff in the box we unlocked this KS is permanent. E.g., the two Elemental points we unlocked for the box, will it be permanently there for future retail boxes, or just for this KS?
