von BK-Herr Kemper | 13.07.2019 | eingestellt unter: Battletech

BattleTech: Clan Invasion Boxed Set Preview

Vor dem Kickstarter gibt es einen Blick auf den Inhalt der Clan Invasion Box.

Catalyst Clan Box Catalyst Clan Box2 Catalyst Clan Box3

Clan Invasion Boxed Set

At the heart of the BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter is the Clan Invasion boxed set, an expansion to the bestselling BattleTech Beginner Box and A Game of Armored Combat boxed sets. Ready for a sneak peek?

One copy of the Clan Invasion box will be included for all backers at the $50 pledge level; additional copies can be purchased for $50 each as add-on items.

Here is what’s inside:

  • Five high-quality plastic miniatures – the reimagined Executioner, Timber Wolf, Nova, Grendel, and Adder OmniMechs;
  • Two dice, exactly like those in A Game of Armored Combat;
  • A 16-page Clan Primer, in the style of the BattleTech primer included with the recent box sets, but focused on the Clans;
  • A Clan Rulebook, expanding on the A Game of Armored Combat rulebook and introducing new rules for the Clans, their OmniMechs, and the high-powered weapons they wield;
  • A booklet of record sheets
  • A 24-page novella featuring an all-new story told from the Clan point-of-view;
  • Five pilot cards and five Alpha Strike cards, each double-sided;
  • A revised reference card, updated with the rules and stats for Clan units;
  • Two double-sided mapsheets featuring all-new battlefields;
  • One sheet of die-cut, punch out cardboard playing pieces representing each of the five OmniMechs in the box, along with terrain from the mapsheets.

The BattleTech: Clan Invasion Kickstarter goes live next Wednesday, July 17 at 1 p.m. Eastern / 10 a.m. Pacific!

… außerdem gibt es einen Artikel zur Alpha Strike Commander’s Edition:

BattleTech: Alpha Strike: Commander's Edition

Alpha Strike Commander’s Edition

Alpha Strike: Commander’s Edition is now available at the Catalyst Game Labs store!

By Joshua Franklin, product developer

As part of an ongoing series of reprints of the core BattleTech rulebooks, the primary Alpha Strike rulebook was given the green light for a new printing. But unlike the other rulebooks, we wanted to make more than just a simple reprint with errata. Alpha Strike is relatively new, and there had been some additions in the Alpha Strike Companion that we really wanted to make part of the standard Alpha Strikegame.

We also reviewed feedback received over the years from fans and from the Catalyst Demo Team, to see where they thought Alpha Strike needed to go. And we had some new presentation options for BattleTech rules from the BattleMech Manual that we wanted to carry over (steal) for Alpha Strike.

The full errata document will be posted, and it has the very specific changes made to the previous edition. But as most of us know, it’s written in “errata speak” of the very precise changes made to the text. But it doesn’t say why those changes were made—it’s without context. “Add ‘don’t’ before the first sentence of the second paragraph” is very precise, but it really needs the context to understand it.

Below is a developer’s overview of the changes made in Alpha Strike: Commander’s Edition. We hope this will help you make sense of what those changes are, perhaps serve as guide to what you might want to take a longer look at in the errata or read first in the new rulebook, or just explain some of our reasoning for changes that may seem random.

First, take a look at the Table of Contents preview that was previously released. You will see several new sections, particularly the Force Building, Special Pilot Abilities and Special Command Abilities from the Companion. We also have Battlefield Support rules we borrowed from the BattleMech Manual. These rules allow you to add aerospace strikes, artillery strikes and minefields as support options without adding additional units.

The three biggest changes, other than adding material from the Companion and the BattleMech Manual, were to TMM (Target Movement Modifier), aerospace and artillery.

Target Movement Modifier

When we began developing a new edition of Alpha Strike, there was a change that I’ve always wanted to make to the game. Total Warfare calculates the distance a unit traveled that turn, ignoring movement spent on terrain costs, facing changes, etc. to determine how hard that unit is to hit: the Target Movement Modifier. Alpha Strike changed this to using Available Move, removing the need to measure and calculate how far a unit moved each turn. You only needed to calculate a unit’s TMM again if heat or damage changes its Move rating.

The Commander’s Edition goes a bit further. All references to calculating Target Movement Modifier (TMM) based on Available Move were removed. Now it’s all based on the TMM printed on the Unit Card. For example, Critical Hits now state an effect on TMM, and Heat lists an effect on TMM. It’s not 100 percent the same as before; I did not want to get into “If it has a Move of 12 inches, then the first MP Hit has no effect on TMM, but if it has a Move of 10 inches, then it does…” The whole point was to remove that kind of calculation during gameplay.  We did add some new Special Abilities (JMPW/JMPS and SUBW/SUBS) in order to note which units stray from the pure ground TMM +1 for jumping because they have weaker or stronger jumping/submersible movement, such as Improved Jump Jets, that doesn’t match their ground Move.

Aerospace

With Commander’s Edition, aerospace play always takes place on the Ground Map—we removed the Radar Map entirely. The Radar Map primarily just delayed the use of aerospace, and we kept adding errata to try and make aerospace more worthwhile. With Commander’s Edition we finally just put them on the map from the beginning and left them there. They still zip across the entire map—you won’t be making turns on the map. But they are always available until they’re destroyed. If you want to delay aerospace in the scenario, use a reinforcement rule just like you would for ground units, i.e., “Aerospace forces will arrive as reinforcements on Turn 3.”

This led to some changes in air-to-air combat, which now uses the flight paths to calculate range, not control rolls.

In addition, aerospace units now choose an altitude when they place their flight path. Primarily this affects range calculations to and from the aerospace unit, and can also limit which air-to-ground options the unit has available. Placing your aerospace assets at higher altitude is much safer; because they’re at longer range they’re harder to hit, and the effect of failed control rolls is MUCH less risky at higher altitudes. But if you want to strafe and/or dive bomb, you need to be at lower altitudes.

Artillery

Artillery saw some significant changes, which I felt would greatly aid the feel of Alpha Strike as a game where you can play with all of the BattleTech universe. Even the Total Warfare rules pushed artillery up to advanced rules, they were difficult to manage. For Alpha Strike, we released a modified version of artillery as errata for standard rules a while back, leaving the older rules as an advanced option. This proved confusing as the advanced rules didn’t work seamlessly if you used the new standard artillery rules as a starting point. For the Commander’s Edition, we included the standard rules artillery errata, but also reworked the advanced rules artillery to build off of the standard rules instead of being a completely different system. Now, standard rules artillery works similar to indirect fire, only with an area effect. Advanced rules allow artillery to fire from longer ranges or off-map with flight times.

Other Changes

Partial Cover and Woods: Were both lowered to providing a +1 to-hit modifier instead of +2.  Heavy (+2) and Ultra-heavy (+3) Woods are still Terrain options. But the default Woods modifier was lowered to +1.

Formation Bonus Abilities: Converted most of these to apply based on a percentage of the number of units in the formation, so a Level II won’t be gimped by taking Fire Lance, for example. The impact on Lances should be the same as before, but Stars and Level IIs may benefit.

Critical Hits on Natural 12: Pretty much says it all right there.

Separate Attack per point of damage: This has been a popular house rule for a while, and Commander’s Edition adds it as an option.

Hull Down: This was rewritten and introduced as part of standard rules. Sprinting was also added to standard rules.

Novas: Renamed “Combined Transport” and “Infantry Formations” and given some bonuses. There are two versions: Novas and Mechanized. Novas are directed more at mounted combat, while Mechanized is intended for situations where the transport is more purely transport. Despite the name, either version can be used by any faction.

Water and Heat: Slight rewording and change where water always drops the unit’s heat level by 1.

Fun Stuff

Force Lists for the Gray Death Legion versus the Red Duke’s personal unit and the Eridani Light Horse versus Smoke Jaguars.

The BattleTech to Alpha Strike conversion rules and PV calculations for units are not included. They are planned for a separate release, though work has not even started on that: it’s a plan, not an active project right now. No changes to either conversion or PV calculations were made for Commander’s Edition other than the addition of Jump and Submersible special abilities.

And finally: it’s got an Index!

Link: Catalyst Games

BK-Herr Kemper

Mostly Harmless. Im Hobby seit den 80ern..... Spielt: Infinity (Nomads & Aleph), Warmachine (Khador & Mercs), BattleTech (Alpha Strike), 7TV Adventures, In Her Majesty's Name, Dust, Batman TMG

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Kommentare

  • Gefallen mir nicht das der Dire Wolf so groß ist wie der 50t leichtere Black Hawk ist eine vertane Chance

  • Und anhand der etwas größeren Bases kann man auch erkennen, das die Nova und der Puma vergrößert dargestellt sind im Vergleich zum Rest.

    Mal sehen wie die gegossenen Modelle die Details rüber retten.

  • Ich frage mich, wen die mit diesem KS erreichen wollen. Da ist kaum etwas drin, was für alte BT Fans interessant und neu sein dürfte. Für Anfänger vielleicht, aber die sind meiner persönlichen Meinung nach rar gesät.

    • Ich vermute mal, die Zielgruppe sind im Wesentlichen alle, die über die PC Spiele der letzten Jahre an die Welt herangeführt wurden.
      Oder Leute wie ich, die das gaaaanz früher gespielt haben, aber dann zu hübscheren und schlankeren Spielen rübergewechselt sind. Die sind von dem Veröffentlichungs-Bloat der letzten 30 Jahre wohl eher etwas überfordert, haben aber viel Nostalgie-Hunger. Die Beginnerbox ist auf jeden Fall bei uns eingeschlagen wie eine Bombe.

      • Um das Thema etwas zu vertiefen:

        – CGL hat sich im Gegensatz zu den beiden anderen aktuellen Boxen unter anderem für KS entschieden, um das Risiko zu minimieren.

        – es war vor Jahren bereits einmal eine Clanbox im Gespräch, jedoch wurden die Pläne auf Eis gelegt. Plastik-Clanner gab es hierzulande einmalig in More Mechs 1995 (!) und für die Amis sind das sogar die ersten (!). Von daher wird es genügend Veteranen geben, die beim KS mit machen werden. Speziell auch, da über den Teich die Leute weniger strikt die Zeitlinien trennen, wie es noch viele hierzulande tun.

        – die aktuellen Boxen sind seit knapp 20 Jahren der erste richtige Versuch, mit aktuellen Designs und production values bei den Minis usw. zu punkten. Das sie parallel den Bekanntheitsgrad und die Nostalgie der PC-Spiele nutzen können, ist ein Bonus.

        – das Thema Verhältnis von Neulingen zu Veteranen/Nostalgikern ist definitiv nichts neues. CGL vermarktet aufgrund ihrer bewussten Entscheidung (und IMO der eigenen Defizite) seit circa 10+ Jahren ihre Produkte an Veteranen. Wenn sich z.B. aufgrund der PC-Spiele oder sonstigen mal der eine oder andere Neuling dazugesellt, so ist das für sie auch ok.

      • Also ich feier das. Mich haben an Battletech irgendwann einfach die teils klobigen Designs und das Material Zinn nichtmehr angesprochen.

  • Grundsätzlich begrüße ich Neuerscheinungen für Battletech ja sehr. Aber warum müssen die neuen Figuren derart groß sein? Da werde ich wohl passen. Schade.

  • Die Mini finde ich sehr gelungen und der Kickstarter ist vorgemerkt. Ich werde da als alter Battletech-Spieler defintiv mitmachen.

  • Ich freue mich auf den Kickstarter und den weiteren Miniaturen. Die Plastikminis der beiden aktuellen Boxen haben mir schon gut gefallen.
    Aktuell spiele ich auch wieder viel Battletech.

  • das ist mal was 😀

    schön hätte ich es jedoch gefunden, wenn es eine übereinkunft mit pgi zwecks den mechwarrior-online modellen gäbe; der madcat und gladiatior wissen hier zu gefallen, aber bei nova und adder hätte ich doch die mwo-modelle bevorzugt; die hier wirken recht klobig.
    und weiss der teufel, was der grendel da zu suchen hat 😉

  • Also da bin ich dabei. Dir haben ja auch schon zwei weitere Boxen virgestellt.

    Liebäugel seid Jahren mit battletech nach ca. 30 Jahren wieder anzufangen…aber mit waren die Minis einfach zu gruselig.

    Die beginner Box hab ich schhon.

    Leider findet man derzeit die aktuelle Grundbox nirgendwo.

    • Die Boxen sind grad nicht mehr zu bekommen weil die erste charge schon weltweit ausverkauft ist. In USA ist die zweite Auflage schon zu haben, diese hat es aber noch nicht übern Teich geschaft. In den Staaten gibt auch Mega geile neue Maps zu kaufen, nur die Versandkosten sind brutal teuer.

  • Mein Testlauf auf den Grasslands-Bodenplänen war ein Desaster…
    Die Foothills sind kleinteiligere Rolling Hills und entsprechend schwierig zu manövrieren.
    Die Beschriftung der Hexfelder ist zum Teil auch schwierig zu erkennen.

    Hab‘ ein Karten-Set über einen deutschen Online-Händler bezogen, nachdem mein Paket aus USA mit zusätzlichem 35-Jahre-Merchandising wahrscheinlich verlorengegangen ist (keine Info seit rund 10 Wochen)…

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