Battletech, Zombies, House stuff, Time…
Posted By matt on April 26, 2009
- Last weekend, Liz and I stopped by Zombie Planet. They have Battletech league which runs Thursdays, which I will likely start attending some time in the next month (I have meetings the next two Thursdays).
- Because of the above, I picked up a copy of Battletech:Total Warfare. It’s a good thing that the pages are kind of glossy because it makes it easy to clean off the drool. I really like what they’ve done with this franchise, as well as with Shadowrun and I’m looking forward to Eclipse Phase. Anyway, specifically about Classic Battletech. See, in addition to the book, there’s lots of supporting stuff on the website, including:
- PDFs of tables from the books which I can carve up and make my own reference cards
- PDFs of blank record sheets.
- CBT Miniatures rules as a free ancillary download.
- As far as the book goes, I was pretty much blown away:
- It is THE MOST gorgeous CBT book I’ve ever owned.
- The full color treatment is wonderful.
- $40? Come on – it’s worth $60. The Master Rules were $35 and were softcover and not nearly so nice.
- I also found (finally) an open source mech generation program. It’s called Solaris Skunk Werks, it’s written in Java, and it produces Total Warfare style record sheets. I like it, and will try to find some time to hack on it. Apparently folks have been complaining about the startup time taking too long, so I suppose I’ll dig into code profiling Java programs to try and optimize it, if possible. There is also apparently MegaMekLab, which I haven’t looked at, but is another approach.
- In an attempt to organize my life, and have the time to play things like Battletech and such, I’m starting to plan out my week for a regular schedule. The sad part is that once I did out how I wanted to spend my week, I realized that I really only have one day a week to devote to fire service stuff (and, to be honest, even that is more time than I want to devote to it, but that is another post, which involves talking about how I’m falling behind in my career, etc.). So, I’m going to end up taking a leave of absence from the department for the duration of me being a commissioner, because I really don’t have time to to both.
- So, last weekend I got the compost pitched into a couple of fields and got them tilled in, transplanted some seedlings into individual containers, did a massive supply run (including $100+ worth of beer… see, I’m collecting bottles for homebrew, and one of the best ways to get bottles is to buy beer and then drink it!!). This weekend I serviced the tractor and got it mostly done, except I can’t seem to break the bolts free for them. So, I’m going to swing by my father in law’s house and borrow his big breaker bar, as well as a larger bore hose for the impact wrench (he thinks that my hose is too narrow so it can’t get the volume it needs to really put much power to it). This year, I’m going to be sure to put never-sieze on it. I also swept and mopped the house, which means that it’s vastly less yeechy. I still need to vacuum, but it’s progress.
Friday night is game night with Lizzy, so we set up terrain for Battletech / microarmor. I took pictures.
-
- Game table
-
- Game table
-
- Game table
-
- Game table
-
- Game table
-
- Game table
-
- Game table
Comments
14 Responses to “Battletech, Zombies, House stuff, Time…”
Leave a Reply
Please note: Comment moderation is currently enabled so there will be a delay between when you post your comment and when it shows up. Patience is a virtue; there is no need to re-submit your comment.
Thursday nights are actually free nights for me.
–H
Will do. You ever play Classic Battletech?
I used to. I don't know where my PlasTechs went, didn't have the cash to put into minis, so I mooched.
–H
Okeydoke. I was more interested in if you knew the rules or not. They haven't changed substantially (as in – they haven't broken them) since you last played.
I also have a pile of mechs, and I'll make sure to bring sheets for what's painted.
That reminds me, I need to email the guys who run that league and ask them what the deal is.
Let me see what I can do, I'm house sitting the next 3 weeks, over in Rensellaer Co.
–H
My Thursdays are booked until after the 14th, so it won't be until after then.
And you posted that above, so I can't give you crap about not showing up tonight.
On the plus side, I have a “Regular” pilot with a Warhammer! I made better dice rolls than the regular gamers there. I wound up rolling for all their reinforcements.
–Hawk
Sweet. Good group?
TGG. [Typical Gamer Guys.]
Most Thursdays are campaign, third Thursday of the month is the League. They will do a seeding series of bouts, two fights against everyone else, to sort things out, then a round robin tournament for the big prize. Last year they gave the winner a mecha, and everybody else got a pre-released PDF of a game book. This year, they're going to give out some more prizes, and possibly another game book.
There are also some Saturdays involved, but I think if you talked to them, you might be able to find out who you'd fight and reschedule it to fit your schedule better.
Tonight was “Papers and Paychecks” for BattleTech. They did some scrounging and recruiting of troops for the upcoming relief scenario. 3 months of relieving a beleagured force, against “The Wobblies”, which I had to have explained to me meant “Word Of Blake”. Makes sense, now that I heard it.
Most of the incoming mechs are Free Worlds League, and unless things change between now and when you show up, one of them is yours, I believe. When it came to me, they asked me where I wanted to be from, and I said “Banzai Institute.” Always wanted to play one of those.
I got to spend a lot of time wandering around the store, fondling the gaming stuff. I want a big pile of the Star Wars minis game, the D&D minis game, and a bunch of other stuff.
–H
Cool. I like campaigns. Also, an occasional Saturday is not a problem, especially since I'm in the process of extricating myself from the fire service. (Long story about which I will post later, but the short version is that it has to be something you want to do, and it really isn't.)
Anyway, I pulled out my box o' mechs, and it looks like I have about a dozen or so painted, of varying weights. Mostly early stuff (3025/Star League era), but I think I have about 50 or so (many still in blisters, and no, I'm not kidding. I found a pile of them on closeout at Historicon some years back for about $3 per…) from all different eras. So, I can probably field a pretty decent lance if need be. I'll have to get out my mech list by faction and see what I have which can be fielded by the FWL. I'll be in contact with those guys and see what we can graft in, but I'm okay to play with someone else's mech too – I just don't know if they're short on mechs or trying to keep the game small.
I didn't see a lot of metal on the table. I saw a baggie with some unpainted Plas-Techs, and they were rolling on a bunch of hand-rolled charts for technology and scrounging.
I don't have a grasp on the TO&E, but it sounds like they're running an aerospace-light combined arms unit. Apparently in the last battle they got their asses kicked by aerospace fighters.
Like I said, last night was “Papers & Paychecks” for running the unit, as well as looking for contracts. This is interesting in the “I've never done it this way” sense, but boring in the “I'm not moving little men around” sense.
Plus, considering traffic last night was AFU on I90, probably a good thing you didn't come down.
–H
Yeah, I have lots of metal…
I'll likely put on some TV tonight and start to take stock of what I have and what I wand to paint up. I think I can do a force for the league pretty easily. Not sure what I have to spare though. I'll send you a list of what's painted and left over when I'm done.
Just to let you know, we’ve recently released some updates to SSW and removed the “slow load time” problem and added a LOT of new features and equipment to the program. We are very excited about the new “canon” dot patterns that the sheets will use and the fact that they are completely customizable.
Enjoy!
George “Skyhigh” Blouin
SSW Developer
Solaris7.com
Camospecs.com
CatalystDemos.com
I know – I’m on the mailing list.