Catalyst Game Labs Brings In The Mercenaries For Battletech
November 10, 2015 by stvitusdancern
So Ben (not the hairy one that likes Dwarves, but our son) is jumping for joy to be seeing more releases in the works for his all time favorite miniatures game Battletech.
This time they have released a Beta version of a new source book for the Alpha Strike rules called Combat Manual: Mercenaries. With this new beta testing they have created a forum where they will be monitoring it until early December look at suggestions for rules improvement from the testers.
They do not have much to say about the actual material in the source book, but one could surmise that it would allow certain miniatures to hire themselves to the different houses to improve their odds in winning a battle.
With this new announcement, Catalyst Game Labs is offering special packages of their PDF version of Alpha Strike Rulebook and Alpha Strike Companion. If you love your Battletech like Ben does and want a more streamlined game than check out Alpha Strike and help steer the course of this new source book.
Are your mechs up to the challenge?
"...seeing more releases in the works for his all time favorite miniatures game Battletech"
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Mercenaries are really interesting in BT because of how much they must rely on salvage even after Succession Wars. After all mechs and spare parts for those are still expensive and you need plenty of C-Bills to buy those. That’s something that Mercenaries don’t have as much as Houses.
If you’ve followed Battletech at all over the last 20 years or so, you will probably be aware of some of the legal issues regarding some of the mechs that were “borrowed” from anime in the 80s. Those designs had been removed and then given radical visual and technological updates, but CGL has finally gotten around to redoing the original “unseen.” The four of the most prominent mechs that were considered unseen are on the cover of this book, the Griffin, Shadow Hawk, Marauder, and Warhammer. Exciting times for BattleTech fans. Novels are reported to be coming back at the… Read more »
Does this mean I’ll get a new Marauder miniature? I like the classic look of the one on the cover more than the current “Project Phoenix” versions available.
Rumor has it that there is another starter box coming out that will contain 12 minis of the previously unseen and 10 new clan mech plastics. It’s also supposed to have the Alpha Strike rule set in it as well. The Alpha Strike Quick Start Rules PDF has a picture of the new Warhammer mini, so I’d assume that we are getting them at some point.
Yeah, they’ve already 3d printed (and painted) a couple of Warhammer prototypes.
A bunch of the other redesigns have also been revealed and they all look pretty good so far.
They’re also using only one artist (ShimmeringSword) to do all of the new lineart to maintain some consistency.
Really looking forward to that AS starter, although I doubt they’ll release it any sooner than next GenCon.
I’ve played Battletech since the early days and this is welcome news indeed. My choice mech has always been my Marauder. I still have all my old minis. A complete Regiment plus support vehicles. Oh how the memories begin to flood my mind. Now that I’m in a large home again I may need to recreate my old battle table. Six by ten with a lighting system over head to high light certain parts of the table at a time. Along the edge of the table were stations to support players much sheets and books. Lots off fun!