funded Catalyst Game Labs: BattleTech Clan Invasion box set

[Xiwo Xerase]

This KS is now live.  URL: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/450703636/battletech-clan-invasion

 

Catalyst Game Labs will be launching a Kickstarter project for a Clan Invasion box set for BattleTech on July 17, 2019.  This was announced on the BattleTech forums about two weeks ago.  I've copied the announcement below:

 

 

In 3050, the true heirs of the lost Star League thunder forth from the depths of the far Periphery and carve deep into the quarreling Successor States. As the Clan juggernaut rolls across the coreward realms of the Inner Sphere, the House Lords scramble to shore up their defenses and devise some way to halt the invaders.

 

The Clan spear is aimed at the heart of human-occupied space. Do you possess the bold tactics and heroic courage to defeat warriors trained from birth to conquer? Or will you uphold Kerensky’s dream to cast aside the squabbling lords of the Inner Sphere and reignite the flame of the Star League?

 

Hot on the heels of the wildly successful launch of two new boxed sets, the BattleTech tabletop game comes to Kickstarter for the first time ever to unleash totally remodeled Clan and Inner Sphere ’Mechs on your gaming table. Utilizing the same process that modernized the nine BattleMechs found in those bestselling box sets, each ’Mech has been painstakingly re-imagined, holding to the spirit of their original design while embracing a modern aesthetic. (Click on the images to enlarge.)

The Clan Invasion box set will add five popular Clan OmniMechs to your arsenal, including the seminal Timber Wolf (Mad Cat). It will also include a bevy of support materials, the rules needed to play Clan technology, all new maps, and more.

 

Stretch goals will rapidly fill the ranks with more Clan and Inner Sphere ’Mechs boasting all-new looks. The Clan Command Star expansion will include the devastating Dire Wolf (Daishi) and the ever-popular Shadow Cat, while the Clan Attack Star pack will contain the Warhawk (Masakari) and Nova Cat. Meanwhile, the Inner Sphere will take desperate action to try to stave off the invasion. The Inner Sphere Command Lance pack will deploy the beloved Marauder and Archer, while the Warhammer and Phoenix Hawk will hot-drop from the Inner Sphere Battle Lance pack. And there’s more to unlock on both sides!

Add-ons will include a plethora of exciting new BattleTech merchandise, the latest rulebooks, sourcebooks, boxed sets, and more!

Edited August 18, 2019 by Xiwo Xerase
KS has funded.

[Weird-O]

My mission: To get a box from this as big as my Bones IV shipment, and to get the Marauder-to-Unimportant-Broccoli ratio as high as possible!

[Sylverthorne]

... gorramnit. 

 

[Xiwo Xerase]

20 minutes ago, Weird-O said:

My mission: To get a box from this as big as my Bones IV shipment, and to get the Marauder-to-Unimportant-Broccoli ratio as high as possible!

Good luck!  I doubt they'll sell individual minis though so you'll get a bunch of Archers too.  (Such a pity, right?)  Beyond that, you know as much as I do.

 

CGL thus far hasn't said anything pertinent beyond the announcement.  (So no idea of price points, what stretch goals might be, etc.)  Shipping will be charged after the KS ends.

 

 

Possibly relevant: CGL is in the middle of fulfilling the Shadowrun: Sprawl Ops KS.  Their estimated delivery date was October 2018, so it's about 7-8 months late.  I had no issue with my fulfillment.  However, the fulfillment handler for their US deliveries screwed up twice and has caused major issues for CGL (the warehouse/shipper made a mistake and then compounded that mistake when they tried to fix it).  I expect them to make improvements to prevent this from recurring.

[WhiteWulfe]

Uh oh.  I might actually wind up with some Battletech minis if these aren't too terribly priced....

[lowlylowlycook]

7 hours ago, Weird-O said:

My mission: To get a box from this as big as my Bones IV shipment, and to get the Marauder-to-Unimportant-Broccoli ratio as high as possible!

 

We have similar ideas.  Perhaps we should start a newsletter.

 

[edit]

 

That said, I wish the Warhammer was in the same box as the Marauder.  Maybe we can convince them to do a "Unseen" Pack.

 

Anyone have experience with these new boxed sets?

 

Edited June 28, 2019 by lowlylowlycook

[Werkrobotwerk]

if it is similar to the alpha strike boxes, the minis are pretty good.

 

my only reservation with this is catalyst has seemed to struggle with pipeline issues over the last 5 years.

[Xiwo Xerase]

9 minutes ago, Werkrobotwerk said:

if it is similar to the alpha strike boxes, the minis are pretty good.

 

my only reservation with this is catalyst has seemed to struggle with pipeline issues over the last 5 years. 

I've heard the new minis are better than those in the Alpha Strike lance packs but I haven't opened my new box sets yet.  I should really do this.

 

They're working on improving their pipeline issues.  If nothing else, we've seen a faster turnaround time for placing orders for new runs of the new box sets and the Total Warfare reprint.

[Weird-O]

The minis from the new Intro box and A Game of Armored Combat box are amazing. Material is just as good as the Alpha Strike packs, but with updated sculpts. Not quite as good as Bones Black, but very close. I've only finished one of them so far, here it is:

 

 

I see no reason to believe the kickstarter stuff won't be as good as this guy.

[Werkrobotwerk]

1 minute ago, Weird-O said:

The minis from the new Intro box and A Game of Armored Combat box are amazing. Material is just as good as the Alpha Strike packs, but with updated sculpts. Not quite as good as Bones Black, but very close. I've only finished one of them so far, here it is:

 

 

nice looking

[klarg1]

I should be 1000% all-in for this, but after painting up my Battletech Beginner Box minis, I have mixed feelings.

 

The sculpts from the Beginner Box, and a "GoAC" are top-notch. I love them.

Unfortunately, the castings I got were not great. There were sunken panels from uneven cooling, significant mold lines that I found hard to cleanup, and other defects. None of it added up to a disastrous miscast that I would send back to the manufacturer, but it was not the clean, beautiful casting I was hoping for. The soft, somewhat Bones-like material was also (for me) a bit of a pain to clean up, compared to hard plastic, resin, or metal.

 

I will almost certainly back this campaign to some extent, but I don't think I can go all-in until Catalyst can convince me they have leveled up as a manufacturer.

[ChaoticBlues]

So very tempting...

[Chrome]

I would seriously suggest that you check in on the state of Catalyst's (CGL) current KS before deciding to back this one. Especially if you're outside of the US.

• Despite CGL saying that the US has been "done" for 2 weeks there seem to be a lot of people who are missing core parts of the KS.
• No one outside the US has gotten their pledges b/c CGL had all of the product shipped to the US instead of opting to have ROW orders shipped to their individual distribution centers in Canada, Europe, and Australia. They've been sitting there in Atlanta for 3 months now.
• EU backers are going to have to wait another 4 months (best case scenario) for a 2nd printing b/c the US distributor double-shipped almost 900 copies of the game - eating up half of the games meant for the EU.
• One of the Add-Ons you could buy were additional dice for the game (it's a dice rolling game) and not a single person who ordered them has gotten them and Catalyst hasn't answered a single question as to why.
• Catalyst allowed you to add almost anything from their existing catalog onto your pledge, but it appears that most of the people who ordered that stuff didn't get it with their pledges.
• The $100+ levels included a "Digital Fiction Combo-Novella" that was supposed to be delivered in Oct '18 but they didn't even start writing it until spring of this year. Nobody has gotten it yet.
• Another Add-On (and the most expensive one) was metal dice and tokens from a 3rd party supplier. Catalyst apparently didn't send them a complete list of orders tho, so some ppl are missing those too.
• Catalyst's lone customer support employee has been overwhelmed by all of this so they simply weren't returning any emails. Last week in a KS Update, Catalyst said that they'd hired another cust rep specifically to handle emails about this KS, but the KS forum is still full of people saying they've followed the new contact instructions and haven't heard back.

And there's a ton of other stuff too. It's honestly the worst run KS I've been involved with since Myth Journeyman.

 

If you do check in on it you'll see a lot of the blame for their current problems being placed on their distributor PSI, but I don't buy that one bit. When there were packaging problems, CGL blamed it on the Chinese warehouse workers. When they didn't get finished product on the boats before Chinese New Year, again it was the warehouse's fault - despite Catalyst getting a bunch of straight-to-retail items on boats that same time. When 100 address changes got missed Catalyst blamed it on PSI, before admitting they screwed it up. Every mistake along the way has been someone else's fault. 

 

And all the while the communication from Catalyst has been horrible, with Lynnvander - the company running the KS for them - stuck in the middle, trying to cover for them.

[WhiteWulfe]

Uhm.... Ouch.  That sounds brutally painful, to say the least. 

[Xiwo Xerase]

CGL issued a sneak peek of the boxed set contents today on the BattleTech forums:

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!

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