Lockdown Day 49

Hi!

I've had another sculpting day and have absolutely tons of robots on the go so should have several updates worth of stuff to post up over the next day or so.

In other news, I'm finding Battletech, or at least the background rather fascinating. A few years back, I picked up some PDF versions of the rules and several other bits and bobs and I've really enjoyed re-reading it and am struck by how rich a setting it incorporates.

Classic Warhammer

It's been knocking around for almost forty years now and has been regularly updated with a setting that has constantly developed and evolved and covers a period of several hundred years and featuring cataclysmic events, galaxy spanning conflicts and all manner of heros, villains and madmen.

Re-reading the background, it's a refreshingly 80's view of the future and has a vast amount of detail that can be rather intimidating to begin with as just where does one start? There's multiple eras and even the guidebooks can be baffling with the sheer amount of fluff that has been written in, not to mention the complexity of quite a few of the rules.

The downside for me has always been the rules. It takes considerable time to play with lots of record keeping for everything from which way a torso twists to ammo consumption and damage and heat build up which has always put me off as I just don't have hours and hours to just play a single game.

Interestingly, the folks behind Battletech have released Alpha Strike, a wargame edition of the game which slims down and simplifies the rules. It's one of the PDF's I bought a few years ago with the intention of giving it a shot but never got round to.

Despite the complexity, there's something oddly appealing about the whole thing and having watched a few battle reports of both Battletech and Alpha Strike, I'm finding myself rather drawn to the whole thing. Maybe it's the prospect of Giant Stompy Robots or the depth of the setting but I think I may have to have a bash at making some of my own mechs to play a game or two (annoyingly I seem to have lost my Hex maps!)

Looking back through my posts, back in 2013 I posted some gubbins about Battletech and what I'd like to explore about the setting. Essentially I'd wanted to keep it simple, eschewing the later Clan Invasion setting and going for the 3030's instead where the great houses had fought for the right to rule the Inner Sphere for centuries and the only result was a dark age of technology where the advanced weapons and equipment was lost and even the mechs themselves are becoming rare or difficult to maintain.

I plan on setting the action in the Periphery, a frontier region beyond the rule of the Great Houses and I hope to put together some of Wilson's Hussars, a down at heel Mercenary unit that has fallen on hard times.

We shall have to see how things go but I'm looking forward to experimenting with sculpting my own stuff for it and trying out a game or two and if nothing else, I'm enjoying trying out some sculpting experimentation.

In the meantime, All the best!