'Splosions

Been trying to play Battletech whenever I get a chance.  Love this game.  I didn't do a post-mortem on Trogland 2016 this year, but the one game I ran at that event was a Battletech scenario that lasted from about 11am-5pm on saturday.  Yeah, turns out lance-on-lance (plus extras) with 5 players takes a while, especially when there are some heavies on the field.  Next time, I think I might run a 2-on-2 game that might not go forever.

Paint Schemes

A while back I bought a copy of the 3rd Edition box set from Ebay, which included plastic models of 14 of the "unseen" mechs, several of which I really wanted.  This set was made back in '94 and the plastic models aren't great quality.  I actually had to use modelling putty to repair a couple of my favorites - the set was in great shape, it's just that the plastic casting was bad.  That said, I think my paint jobs on the ones I painted turned out "decent" to "great".  Still need to clear-coat them before they're ready to go, however.  I did decide not to paint a few of them for aesthetic reasons.  Some of the old models look straight-up goofy (I'm looking at you, Thunderbolt), and with other's I'm not a big fan of the "backpack" and/or (to a lesser extent) the "handheld weapon" looks.  I did paint the Phoenix Hawk, Stinger, and Battlemaster that fall into that latter category, but the Griffin and Shadow Hawk look more like space marines than battlemechs IMO.  The Wolverine I *might* have painted, but its head is extremely poorly cast and mangled.  Anyway, they didn't make the first cut.  I'm up to 34 painted models now, and I think they've generally improved over time.

Compiling an Arsenal

I also went to Kinko's and printed out 114 pages of mech sheets - one copy of each common variant for each model I have painted.  I've got these sorted in a binder now.

And I've completed my first draft of what I'm calling Mechwarrior Basic - a companion RPG system and set of Battletech mods to play the game as a ttrpg.  It takes some elements from Mechwarrior 2nd Edition and a variety of other games.  It's intended to be simple and quick, specifically to contrast the methodical crunch of the wargame aspect.

The reason for all this is that I'm still hoping to run a Battletech campaign at some point...  

...or, as soon as I find another player.

Still Current Campaigns

As you can probably tell from this blog, our World of Darkness game continues - and it's going quite well overall.  This has been a really solid game.  I like the characters, the setting is good, and the mystery is interesting.  And maybe a little too involved.

The WoD game is great - and I'm still having a lot of fun with it, but I'm really looking forward to starting a Numenera campaign after this one resolves.  Looking back at the blog, I can see that I've been trying to resolve WoD and start Numenera since December.  I'm not good at ending things.  Even when I want to.

Maybe someday.

~PS