I'm new to the board (this is my second post - I've been lurking/reading for about a month, but never found any specific place to make an introduction - so, Hi everybody, I'm Sam). But more than that I'm "new" to BattleTech, or rather I played BattleTech as a kid in the late 80s/early 90s, then drifted away, and just got interested in getting back in recently. I'd also played Warhammer Fantasy during that same timeframe, and a few years ago some of my friends that I play RPGs with talked about getting into Warhammer, and a few months (and a couple hundred dollars later) and I had a new Skaven army.
From there I branched out into other miniature wargames, from historicals to scifi skirmish. This year I painted up a Custodes army for the new edition of 40K. During that time I flipped through BattleTech boos at my FLGS occasionally, but never took the plunge. Then Adeptus Titanicus was announced. I got kinda excited about that, it evoked my childhood love of giant robot battles. But then the prices were revealed. I mean, I shouldnt have been surprised by that point, GW has rhymed with "price gouging" for years, but $300 for a boxed set with 8 minis, 6 of them the size of Space Marines? That was more than I could stomach.
But I guess that left me with a giant-robot-sized hole in my imagination, and that's when I really started thinking about BattleTech again. I ended up finding a copy of the original 3025 TRO for cheap in good condition on Ebay. Than was like a double dose of pure nostalgiaa, igniting my childhood passion again. Then I purchased an original Atlas mini (I seem to be addicted to buying Atlas minis for some reason, I now have 5 of them). And of course I looked into getting into the game and discovered Catalyst's "coming soon" page, showing the new Introductory and Starter boxes. GenCon came right after, and I got to see Youtube videos. My excitement was mounting. I found out Mechcon was being held in my hometown in December, and I started buying up more and more old books to get myself back into the fluff. Grabbed a copy of the Star League sourcebook, Comstar, the first two Stackpole trilogies. Then discovered Alpha Strike, which seemed like the perfect way to introduce my gaming circle.
But it was at this point that I noticed something odd. I'd downloaded the free preview PDF of Alpha Strike, but the actual book was no where to be found online. On Ebay it was selling for silly prices. Luckily one of the local gaming stores in my area turned out to have a copy, but I'm still trying to get a hold of the AS Companion for less than a hundred dollars. "Why are these out of print?" I wondered. I guessed it was because the new "Commander's Edition" was slated to be released soon, but even so, that seemed odd to me for a game company. I mean, you could still find copies of D&D 4th edition on the shelves of any gaming store up to and even after 5th edition came out.
But then I found it wasn't just Alpha Strike. Not counting the new printing of total War, (which I only just this week managed to order a copy of), it appears none of the core rulebooks for BattleTech are in print. I can't even find a copy of the TechManual on Ebay. Sure, there are PDFs, but I'm old school. I want a physical copy. And PDFs arent on gamestore shelves inviting new players.
Regardless, though, I was excited for the release of the new boxed sets. And then this delay. It's fine, it's understandable. CGL had, as a business, a projection and an intention, and things got delayed. OK, fine. But that leaves me as someone hghly motivated to get back into this game with no way to go out and buy a starter set of rules. And I have to think, that's not an isolated scenario.
And all that seems very odd to me. Why , at the very least, were the core rules of the game not kept in print? Even doing a Print on Demand service through DriveThru or LuLu just seems elementary to me. I mean, it seems like I'm exactly in the position that CGL would want for a fan, interested in the game, wanting to throw money at them, but just sitting here twiddling my thumbs.
I can, obviously, go the Oldhammer route. Pick up an earlier boxed set (but not any of the ones CGL put out, because apparently those are worth $200+ on the secondary market). I grabbed all the Alpha Strike plastic mini boxed sets for $5 a piece on clearance. It's just weird to me that I cant walk into a local game store (or at least an online retailer) and order a copy of the TW or the Techmanual or the AS Companion. And that's not even considering any of the further supplements like Combat Manual: Mercenaries or any of the House Handbooks.