Battlegames comes to the end of its thirty–four issue journey as Henry receives the call to a new adventure that of editing Miniature Wargames. Like all true stories, rather than fairy–tales, when one quest ends, another quest come along. All stories evoke feelings in the readers, and the story of Battlegames is the story of Henry responding to the call to produce a wargame magazine that covers what wargamers actually do down the club, or at home, rather than what people think they do.
I am of course dead chuffed that my article on BattleTech will appear in the very last issue of Battlegames. For those readers of Miniature Wargames that fear a return to the days when Miniature Wargames did not feature SF articles, I think you can rest assured that Henry will publish SF in his magazine. I see no evidence to suggest anything to the contrary.
25 Years of BattleTech Woot FTW or what?! :-)
Wow. Nostalgia trip.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere, I must dig out the stories of Steph Taylor, her ShadowHawk 2K 'Snowfire" and Taylor's Tigers.
You rock on, Ash!!!
ReplyDeleteBring the heavy metal mayhem!!!
-Steve Ronin
www.BattleTechUniverse.org
Thank you, I do and it will be interesting to see the reaction to this article once it's printed. Really the more controversial the better in some ways, as that would mean more people discussing BattleTech again, whereas at the moment my feeling is that all I hear very few voices discussing anything.
DeleteYou want controversial? :D
DeleteI discovered BT/MW as a FTF game well before the Clans. I actually spent a long time RPing on the BT3056 MUSE (as a faction head), and co-wrote a novel outline that got submitted to FASA way back when (about 1995, IIRC). I always felt (and still do) that the original, pre-Clans setting was near perfect, and that in some ways the Clans and the 3055 Tech Readout munchkinised the game. I can wax lyrical about the ways to manage your heat in a stock Battlemaster, and I (certainly could and probably still) can give you a pretty detailed breakdown of the political situation in the Sarna March around 3056.
Loved the game and adored the setting. Still do. Don't play it any more and wish I did.
Snap on the novel chapter and outline thing to FASA, though mine was done with Alex Stewart was earlier than yours, being a novel about the Clans called Homecoming that had an entirely feel to it. Around 1988 or so IIRC?
DeleteHi, Mike!
DeleteI have a similar story; I dropped out of BT when the clans were becoming the big thing, and have been getting back into it recently. Two things put me off:
(1) The basic game was about tradeoffs: you don't do an alpha strike until you're sure it's going to take down the enemy, because you won't be doing anything for a couple of turns afterwards. New tech largely removed heat as a limitation.
(2) The original setup had a single guiding idea: "tech is getting worse, instead of better". This was abandoned at the point FASA realised that if there weren't any new shinies you couldn't sell books of them to the player.
Incidentally I'm one of the moderators of rec.games.mecha these days, should you feel like dropping by.
It's a small world :D
ReplyDeleteI RP'ed the CO of Gamma Reg 12th Vegan Rangers (and basically co-ran the faction on BT3056 MUSE) for ages. The Rangers were in a really cool little spot in the Sarna March (Old Kentucky) and the world would have been the most awesome setting for a Mechwarrior campaign, as well as having bunches of Liao and mercenary raiders... By the time we got the whole setting detailed and figured out, FASA's novel schedule was racing off into 3058+, and - like you said - the whole lostech thing was a fail if FASA wanted to do a GW and keep selling new tech to players.
(and thanks for the inspiration for another blogpost :D)
DeleteCongrats to you for this!!!! Rock on!!!!
ReplyDeleteJust read it - great primer on the background etc :)
ReplyDeleteI assume you saw Henry"s allusion to us both too?
Delete