Bob’s Battletech

One of things noticeable about the games is a lack of painted models, So far only 3 forces have been of painted my Ghost Bear Star, Kevin’s Comstar and a newbie to group Kains Northwind Highlanders.

Though games with unpainted minis is pretty much the norm at Asgard I can’t do it myself ( though don’t mind apponent having them.

Not long ago, I managed to pick up the Wolf’s Dragoons Star at Questing Knight at Wellington,  and wanted to play them  for a game at a little board game club in Blackheath Birmingham, as us my want above they have to be painted so did a very quick paint job for the Dragoons Alpa Regiment.

All Contrast or Speed Paints  , took me only a couple of hours. Finished off with some Wolf Dragoons Xfers off Ebay   Some dry lettering I found and some old GW white numbers from Imperial Knights.

As it happened,  the event was called off at last minute. But as Gerry said I had at least been productive.

For a quick paintjob I’m pleased with how they came out,  and as the Dragoons can field both Inner Sphere and Clan mechs , think the Dragoons will be how I paint the Alpha Strike Starter Box.

Wasn’t expecting to do an update but events (literally) have moved at a pace. We have done a couple of BT Alpha strike nights and one full Saturday at Asgard.

I remembered that sitting in a box Kevin and myself had the Urban Matts, which included the ruined city that were produced for Dropfleet commander many moons ago, which go well with the now numerous Alpa Strike Starter boxes.

So the last few game sessions have resolved around playing in urban environments.  The cardboard buildings aiding in set up of the various scenarios in the Commanders edition rule book.

( We have found there are 6 printings of this, and the edition you get may depend on where in Catalyst’s supply chain, we realised Kevin had edition 1 and I had 4… there is a master errata sheet which is downloadabke on their site which gives all the changes from each edition)

Well we managed it, and we layer out one table fir Alpha Strike and one for Classic, the former took most of our attention with 4 games played straight out of beginner box .

We played the 1st scenario 3 times which does appear slanted to the Clan Forces, with 3 clear Clan victories.

The 2nd Scenario was played which use virtually all the contents of the starter box ( Unfortunately I thought I took a photo but isn’t showing on phone .

This was more balanced with the Inner Sphere clearly the Winner.

Apologies to players for a couple of rules errors, but with Alpha Strike I’m as big a newbie as they were.

Been  abit since done any updates on this, but things have been bubbling in the background on the gaming front, with a certain amount of interest developing in playing both Classic and Alph strike Battletech . There will be a weekend event at Asgard games, but initially we will try an evening , on the 9th March 23 .

https://www.asgardgamesuk.co.uk/

I shall endeavour to photograph and do a report

Well having got you in the mood , having painted up Grayson Carlyle,  I thought looked a  it lonesome,  so decided why not paint up a Company of Grey Death Legion, I’d already done Clays Rifleman, so why not the rest of the Company from the Helm Campaign as related in the novel ,’ The Price of Glory’ the last novel of the original Trilogy  and the books that got me really interested in the Univese.

As Carlyle’s Marauder had been the base scheme idea I pinched for my own Forlorn Hope Battalion of Knights Mercian.

Biggest problem was getting the mechs , as the Lance boxes were becoming few and far between  even on fleabay, but I dropped lucky when buying some Salvage Boxes from Waylands Forge in Brum  getting , Crusader, Archer, Stinger and Warhammer and another Rifleman.  I picked up another Stinger, Phoenix Hawk  and  Shadow Hawk off ebay, and re-purposed a Griffin from my attempt at Wolf’s Dragoons a year ago. I then brought another starte box (of course I did) for anything left.

So as it stands

Command Lance

Marauder (Carlyle)

Rifleman (McCall)

Shadow Hawk (Kalmar)

Wolverine (Clay)

Fire Lance

Warhammer (Khaled)

Archer (Koga)

Crusader (Bear)

Shadow Hawk ( Sharryl)

Recon Lance

Griffin (De Villier)

Phoenix Hawk (Kent)

Stinger (Blake)

Stinger (Shapely)

So having painted all above thought might be nice to try out Some Alpha Strike using the scenarios from the Battletech Source book.

‘Turning Points Helm.’

This was the campaign were the famous Helm Data Core was found which enabled the Inner Sphere to rediscover some of the lost tech lost during the 3  previous succession wars.

This weeks update isn’t so much about model painting,  but resulted from waking up at 6am on Tuesday morning and thinking(as yo do) that it might be an idea to put all my BT collection, specially the new plastics in one place.

So I cleared my small board game collection out of a cupboard my father built me many years ago for my separates hi-fi (stolen many years back) and had a major sort of Games room to find all the BT stuff brought over the 40 odd years I’ve been collecting it.

All the Rules and background material has been moved to a set of shelves that were actually built for my mother’s shoe collection.

It’s not quite all, there is still a large metal Tool box which is still upstairs with all the vehicles and my original collection of mechs, most of which are older than Justin and John, and Warren would have been about 3.

Small update, initially I thought this might be a quick project that I might  finish but given Catalyst Games update from last night, and my shall we say historical predilection for this game… I may be painting Battlemechs as I die…. not a bad way of going!

https://bg.battletech.com/news/restocks-of-core-products-major-update-of-coming-releases/

Sigh!

Finally the Forlorn Hope Battalion Knights, currently short 6 mechs, though that will be rectified in near future, plus ther will be more additions to the Grey Death Legion.