Here’s something a little different for WS&TZ. Barnes and Noble (one of the last, large North American book chains) recently ran a 50% off all boardgames sale. I went in looking for a second copy of the B&N exclusive Blitz Bowl: Ultimate Edition, but walked out with four boxes of Battletech.

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what I was buying. I know the core box above comes with ‘Inner Mechs’, so I added what I thought was a ‘Clan Star’ to the set. Come to find out…that the “Wolf’s Dragoons Assault Star” is really a set of inner mechs in a Star (set of 5 mechs) formation. Apparently, in the BT fluff, this Wolf guy was a Clanner who infiltrated the Inner Sphere using Inner Sphere mechs. I bought all Inner Sphere.

Well, I trip to the LGS fixed that issue. The Clan Invasion box had only Clan Mechs, and the Alpha Strike box has both Clan and IS. NOTE: I don’t think it ultimately matters for game play. It seems like the mechs end up getting all mixed in with the various factions.

Anyway, long time readers of the site will recall that I painted up some BT mechs almost four years ago. At the time, my son was into Gundam, so I hoped this was something we could play together. It ended up being too crunchy for us, so the models were sold. I kinda respect this venerable setting/system though. I’ve always seen it as an odd counterpart to my beloved Blood Bowl in that they both run on rules that are, at their core, over 30 years old but have endured and both have strong fanbases carrying each through dark times of publisher mishap. Also, the availability of the Alpha Strike box, put me over the decision to re-buy into the game. It’s like a modern, fast-playing version of the game. Maybe think BzB to BB?

Anyway, above are my first set of painted mechs. Eight Clan mechs. I’m making a local trade for that Wolf’s Dragoon IS mech set for some more Clan mechs, so I wanted this group to have a simple color scheme. Simple so that when I get the future mechs I won’t mind revisiting the scheme. These aren’t my best paint job, but it does check off another project 2023 item, and it gets me into the game quickly as we have a decent pool of local players. If I can only find time between BB games…