My Battletech Kickstarter Shipment has arrived!

 Huzzah!

The Dropship has arrived!

Saturday afternoon I was like a little kid on Christmas morning going thru all of my new toys! 

First off, I got all of the standard stuff: (2) sets of dice (Generic BT and House Steiner) the posters, (they're still in the plastic),the big Mad Cat, the Mercenaries starter box, the Visigoth fighter & lastly the salvage box of Savannah Masters (4 hover tanks, 2 bases; remember that before you join the chorus of complaints about that decision, they were free). 

In addition, I also got the following: 

Salvage boxes: 
Flea x2 (giving me 3 total including the one in the starter box)
Phoenixhawk IIC

Ostscout
Vedette medium tank
Galleon light tank (like the Fleas, this gave me 3 in total)
Shrek heavy Tank
Sturmfeur heavy tank (also bringing those up to 3 in total)

Rifle & Command Lances box:
Bulldog medium tanks x2

Hetzer wheeled tanks x2

Sturmfuer heavy tanks x2

Von Luckner heavy tanks x2

Such a cool sculpt! These are likely to only be used as 'filler' or possibly the APC version.

Recon & Hunter Lances:

Ontos heavy tanks x2

Behemoth heavy tanks x2

Skulker wheeled tanks x2 (LOVE the sculpts on these generally worthless vehicles)

Warrior VTOLs x2

Heavy Recon Lance:

Ostroc

Merlin

Charger

Assassin

Clan Cavalry Star:

Griffin IIC

Shadowhawk IIC

Locust IIC

Jenner IIC

Black Python (I found it odd to not make all 5 mechs be IIC variants)

I also gave the new Battlefield Support rules a look annnnnnd have mixed feeling about them. 

Its like catalyst said: Here, use these amazing new vehicle sculpts, now watch as we give you the 'new and improved' vehicle rules that minimizes them entirely. The vehicle motive crit chart is garbage, but I get that it is there to make Mechs more appealing. Personally, I'll stick with my infantry and tanks operating as they always have using the Total Warfare rules I think.

 

The Behemoth heavy tank, for when you need a free roaming pill box. 

As battlefield support, tanks and infantry are referred to as the generic category of 'assets'. No hit points or armor facings, just take this (not) much damage per turn and roll to see if dead and either you are or aren't. If you survive, there's no damage recorded except that they're slightly easier to kill next turn, and so on. Also like Alpha Strike, all weapons are grouped into a generic set of damage in 1 roll to-hit. Whereas the Behemoth above is bristling with weapons, facing in all directions, needing several rolls, meaning some will hit and some won't. 

Aerotech, otherwise known as: Reading Rulebooks, the Game.

On the flip side of that, we've never bothered with aerospace fighters, off map artillery and minefields as the rules are too convoluted to be bothered with. Sometimes it feels as if the folks writing the BattleTech rules assume we all have PhD's in Mathematics. Whereas using arty, airstrikes and mines via the 'Strikes' category of the new battlefield support rules doesn't bother me very much. That said, I am well aware that my lack of bias towards these new battlefield support rules are due to my having never used the old, Total Warfare ones for these types of attacks before. 

The Battlefield Support rules are optional, and...well, feel a hellova like mixing Alpha Strike rules into Classic BattleTech. I was discussing them with Screech and he'd heard that folks seem to like them, though whether that is what Catalyst is saying, or the community at large remains to be seen I think. Alpha Strike is a gateway drug for Classic, but I don't think it has any place in Classic.