The 357th ID Blogspot goes all the way back to 2011, though the genesis of the group had its roots in the hallowed antiquity of 2006, after a decade of people coming & going and solely subsisting on pickup games with a limited pool of 'Mechs. I started this as a way for all of us to touch base and throw our units out to the wider world, to commemorate some of our gaming excursions (especially our later Waterly events), and in general to just muse over a universe that I've loved playing in since the first MechWarrior video game (and those a-hole Dark Wing Lance guys!).
A lot has changed in the past dozen years. Even more has changed since my first time hitting the tabletop in 1996. Official and unofficial membership in the group has ebbed and flowed. Many of us have "grown up" more, got married, had kids, picked up crazier job obligations etc. Some former members have made themselves so unwelcome in general as to become excommunicado (thanks, John Wick!) and others never had a chance to really get going with group activities to be considered as such despite the interest. There have been moves and breakups and shakeups and breakdowns. Life has been lived and whatnot.
So I thought it was a good time for 1) a general update about the updates and 2) going through & cleaning up the ol' Blogspot. My biggest goal with this is to get all the various units cleaned up with tables of organization & equipment (such as they are), and to take new pictures as all but a handful of existing units have had additions or primed pieces finally painted. And many have been "finished" in that I won't be adding anything new to that particular unit, though the faction itself may see growth.
In many cases, this has already happened. Clan Ghost Bear, for instance, has an entry with Tau Galaxy but thanks to the successful Clan Invasion Kickstarter and so much plastic available for a much, much lower price point than metal minis, I've also built a small Rasalhague Galaxy force. Clan Cloud Cobra now has a new Beta Galaxy unit in progress. House Liao, if we're looking at it as a Citizen's Honored type unit and not a straight mercenary force, as the 4th Tau Ceti Rangers looking towards a battalion by mid next year.
In other instances, under-represented houses like Steiner/Tamar Pact will be getting a unit added soon as will Davion sort of. And in doing this, it will push me to get my paint backlog cleaned up more. Since the CI Kickstarter, I've barely touched anything metal and I have so, so much work on that side to finish. I've been trying to keep units purely metal or purely plastic but also, since I have the ability to 3D print, there's going to be a lot more blending of units down the road.
And when I say "3D print," I mean for 'Mechs and stuff that don't have miniatures already. I fully support Catalyst and whilst I haven't purchased any Ironwind Metals products in probably 8 or 9 years, I still support them fully too. But I'm also not going to sit around and wait for the next six years to get a bevy of Iron Cheetahs and Mastodons for my forces anymore. Plus, and going back to the Clan Invasion Kickstarter (and the more recent Mercenaries Kickstarter), the Catalyst plastics are scaled with each other much better & their designs are more of a current aesthetic than most of the older IWM sculpts that were inherited from Ral Partha so when I do 3D print, I have the option of scaling to fit (even if it takes me a few tries to make it look right) so no more giant-sized light 'Mechs or tiny assaults (Blood Kite). |
Last, I want to go in and retool the history/backstory/large components thereof of my Kuroi Kaze force. I don't use it in many games these days but it is a huge part of my own BattleTech history and I love it dearly. So it deserves a clean up, a refresh, and some changes based on how much more I know about BattleTech in 2023 than I did in 1996, especially because I oft note how many unintentional similarities my history has with canon stuff in the early BattleTech fiction that I didn't read until the last few years (like, I just got the first two books of the Warrior Trilogy, 35 years after they were written...). Which is kind of a sad look for Mike Stackpole that my musings as a 16-20 year old sync up with his adult stuff buuuuut I'm sure people will just say I must have read -something- about these characters and copied ideas so whatever. It doesn't matter much to me either way, but I do have some newer ideas that I want to incorporate whilst leaving some core background untouched. Legacy history won't go away, I'll still hang onto what I had, but we'll consider this a giant retcon in another universe or some shizz like that.
But yeah. 2023. Post-pandemic edition. Looking at playing with people a lot more. Teaching more new players. Sticking with my "I'm willing to foot the bill for your first lance/star" is much easier when I can grab a lance or star pack for less than $30 these days, versus $50-80 depending on composition. And with a huge amount of tanks and general-use 'Mechs coming between now and next year, it's a great time to be a BattleTech player.
