In der Haupstadt werden Zeichen gesetzt

Ja, phantastisch! Nachdem auf dem Odyssee-Con Filmvorführungen und Lyrikdarbietungen, Makramee und Seidenmalerei den Snuff- und Psychorollenspielern gewichen sind, gibt es nun ENDLICH auch auf dem vermeintlichen Volkscon, der ja ums "spielen" geht, eine echte AUTORENLESUNG.
Hurra! Hurra! Hurra!

Immerhin, ehrlicher als die meisten DSA-Meister.

Aber ich kann es mir richtig vorstellen, wie sie planend dasitzen, sich durch das Zauselbärtchen streichen: "Ja richtig! Toll, da können viel mehr Leute gleichzeitig rumsitzen und jemandem beim reden zuhören, ohne Einfluß nehmen zu können! Genial!"

Zum O.R.K.

Eine Politiksendung aus der Mark Capella...

Hanse Davion = Pres. Obama

So muß man sich das wohl vorstellen.

Nobel-Peace Prize

A young turk, who came from a poor family, fighting against a mainstream that was sheepishly following a reactionary movement and that followed a charismatic, populist and psychotic leader. Against all odds and obstacles even within his party, he climbed his way up and brought hope and change to several countries, a nation, and the World:

Kit-bashing for greater destruction

One of my mid-decade hobbies was buying Battletech 2nd and 3rd Edition boxes on ebay. They were like grab-surprise-bags for a while. Interestingly, you don´t find them as often as five years ago. Though I gained several things I never thought (MechCommander 2 + Manual, half used crayons etc.) I would, the important part were the plastic minis.
One box was terribly beat up and the rest of the plastic figs looked like that:



Although I could refit some Mechs with parts from other ebay-boxes, two Riflemen, a Shadowhawk a Warhammer and especially a Marauder were mostly junk.

I couldn´t throw them away, and planned to use them as "destroyed Mech" templates. But then I was pointed to Steel Heroes! With Steel Heroes, I thought I might restore those beat up LosTech machines.



The Marauder also needed a stable footing, and prior glueings had not worked. So I went for drilling two holes in the leg and using part of an office clip as ersatz-skeleton. Drilling in plastic in that kind of plastic is actually easier than drilling lead, which surprised me, I thought it might splinter.



...and the result!



Now we applied ample amounts of spray-can base colour...



...and after it had dried, US-Army green was chosen as base for the Davion Camo.



Add some dry-brushing with a white/US Army green mixture and some highlights with whote and olive, and...



Voila!

The Rifleman variants are easy to come by, the Marauder might kust be perfect for a MAD-3L. I´m not sure I know of a matchng Warhammer variant. If you wonder where the SRM of the WHM went, look here.

Top Five of sucky things in Battletech

5) Any intra-fandom discussion regarding weights, especially those of Mechs. The "tons" of Battletech are a VOLUME unit. Don´t believe me? What are the tons good for? Right, construction. From the start, BT had Mech construction rules, where you choose systems from tables and the costs are calculated in tons. Sound familiar? Right, it´s directly lifted from Traveller. And in Traveller, a dton is a VOLUME unit. An Atlas does NOT weigh a hundred metric tons, and a machine gun does not weigh 500 kg.

4) The novels. The only saving grace the novels do offer is that they are not considerably worse than the spy/techno-thriller stuff of the mainstream. Sometimes I think the novels are purposefully written so that EVERY reader feels like he was a little smarter than the author, which might be a factor in the "I can do better", that is prevalent in BT

3) Overpersonalization of conflicts. The focus on the leader-superheroes and their relationships as started by Mr. Stackpole is obnoxious. Especially when their inner-life and emotionsa are concerned. For some weird reason, the largest parts of the fandom read it, but do NOT try to emulate these things in their games. .

2) Tournament & League Gaming. Germany was in the clutches of a highly structured "Chapter-Fight-Ranking System" for all the nineties, and that drove away many casual gamers. The system attracted a different demographic and that lead to a self-reinforcing cycle of abandonment and recruitment.

1) Clan Fans. See, I can see the value of the clans for the boardgame & the universe. But someone who likes those morons is suspect.

*Drumroll*

0) MWDA. WTF?

Spielhilfe

MacCarrons Langer Marsch 3023-25

Top Ten Reasons why I love Battletech

10)
Westernized giant fighting robots in camouflage: stand-ins for 80ies style US-military-industrial-complex hardware discussions AND liberal dissemination of mayhem. It does what Twilight:2000 also did, but much much more playable. Also: no discussions between your recon sniper, door gunner and deer hunter friends about how sharpshooting REALLY works.

9)
Thirty Years War written large, in many, many aspects.

8)
It´s Traveller´s little brother. Like Pokémon to MtG. Or MtG to Poker.

7)
The Lyran Commonwealth, the only time I have seen Americans understand modern (or 80ies) Germany: federalism = rampant, economy = good, engineering = good, military = bad.

6)
Jumpships & Dropships. Even harder SF than 2300!



5)
Articulation points for your own creations. No community around a large metaplot and novelized franchise has a stronger tendency for what-if and alternate universe creations by their members.



4)
Few detailed planets, but huge metaplot that is more specific than Traveller´s to provide a framework.

3)
Seamless scaling of rules & games. From Man-to-Man combat up to the whole Inner Sphere: there´s a game for it. And if you take the old ones, they actually work in a stunning manner. INCLUDING logistics (take that, Traveller!)

2)
clear boardgame/mini line of tradition makes fudging anathema

#drumroll#

1) lack of modules for Mechwarrior

Tommorrow, we´ll see what there is to hate about Battletech.

To the english Forums!

LAG gaming

Gestern mit nicht-BTler mal ein Szenario (The Swarm´s Sting) aus Fox´s Teeth gespielt. Urteil: Szenarios, wo einer die andere Seite erreichen muß, sind immer schon/noch langweilig, führen aber sofort zu Fragen, die nur durch echtes Kampagnenspiel beantwortet werden können. Ich habe zwar gewonnen, aber gegen Anfänger und mit so einem Fluchtszenario gültet das nicht viel. Das breite Grinsen, als der Greif des Verteidigers in der ersten Runde meinem Stinger den Torso komplett wegschoß, war aber zu bemerken.

Zum O.R.K.