Christmas Score

Yep, no picture of our Christmas tree this year for reasons that fall under boring real life problems sucking the life out of living.

Instead, what we scored; that's what I got for the two of us. The only exceptions are Just Stab me Now, which I bought for Susan, who has her nose in it now. So, good choice. The other was the book Solo Wargaming for yours truly.

We've got older DVDs of the movies, but as we have a most excellent sound system, courtesy of Susan, and a big screen, Blu-rays really do look better than DVDs (480i versus 1080p resolution).

However, I have finished some painting, despite everything dragging me down, I just haven't gotten around to taking any pictures of said models. Some will come, at some point in the not too distant future.

So that's all folks. Hope you all had a good Christmas.

What is a Wargamer? A comedy sketch

 

What is a wargamer? And is it different for everyone? A tongue in cheek response.

Setting: A club room where the Grognard, an old wargamer is listening to classical music, sat with a brush painting lace and facings on some Napoleonic figures, with an open reference book at hand. 

[Sound effect: a knock on the door]

The Grognard says, "Enter!"

A portly wargamer enters, wearing thick rimmed glasses and asks, "Is this the old Grognard wargaming club meeting room?"

"Yes it is. I am the Grognard. As you can see, I am the wargamer who always has a reference book open, while painting lace and facings on Napoleonic figures. 

"I see."

Grognard continues. "I am also the wargamer who says, playing with toy soldiers doesn't mean we're childish warmongers."

The Portly wargamer replies, "I am the wargamer with a mean streak to my character. You will find that I am always rolling my dice, [rolls two D6 on the table] like so. I disapprove of other wargamers who paint lace and facings on their figures. And I am always the one who checks the rule book [as he opens a rulebook] and shouting, that's not what the rules say!"

[Sound effect: a knock on the door]

The Grognard says, "Enter!"

A young wargamer, dressed in a black leather jacket that has the name of a heavy metal band on the back enters, sneers, and says, "Old Grognard wargamers, allow me to introduce myself. I'm the young unconventional wargamer who unsettles everyone in the club by playing science fiction and fantasy wargames. As you can see I sneer at wargamers who obsess over historical details."

[Sound effect: a knock on the door]

The Grognard says, "Enter!"

A slightly effete, well dressed wargamer enters the club room. "Good evening gentlemen. I am the wargamer who cares not for tradition and silly superstitions about lucky dice.

Everybody says, "Welcome!"

"However, you will notice I wear a cravat, and well fitted clothes. I have bathed before coming and therefore lack any unpleasant body odours. I have spent many happy hours painting terrain, and discussing Clausewitz's the science and art of war."

All: [sentimentally] Aaah.

"The reason for wearing a stylish cravat and my effete manner is never explained."

[Sound effect: a knock on the door]

The Grognard says, "Enter!"

Paint it Pink enters. "Forgive my late arrival, I bathed before coming and took time to dress well..." 

The stylishly dressed wargamer, clearing his throat, says, "No, I am afraid that role is already taken, I'm sorry."

"... But of course." Changing tack she says, "I wear a black leather jacket and play science fiction and fantasy wargames."

The young wargamer interrupts, "I think you will find that is me, old woman."

Then Paint it Pink says, "I'm the wargamer who picks up the rule book and..."

The portly wargamer shouts out, "That's not what the rules means!"

Desperate to find her role she says, "I am the wargamer who always uses reference book, while painting my figures..." But stops speaking as she sees the Grognard reading a book with a paintbrush in his other hand. And asks, "...while listening to classical music?"

The Grognard, apologetically says, "I'm afraid so."

"You leave me no other choice! I am the wargamer who is outwardly calm but, subject to sudden [slams fist on table] and inexplicable 'fits of temper'!"

All: Aaaaah!

THE END.

With apologies to  Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones, and any wargamers who might feel seen.

Xmas Haul

And here are my prezzies. The MDF terrain pieces from Charlie Foxtrot Models, who I can highly recommend because he turned around not only the order, but some custom corner pieces for me.

Some Scale 75 Instant Colours that I've tried and liked, so getting some more is welcome. These were from Hobby Heaven on eBay, who also sent a Christmas Cthulhu badge. Thank you. Again, highly recommended.

Got a book by an author new to me who specializes in first contact stories.

And my big prezzie, which was a total surprise was a LED light for my camera, which I will have to practice with, but will be super useful for when a flash is not welcome.

A Retrospective

Magnetized the backpack because previous idea interfered with the head.

Last year, when I posted A Light Ahead, I remarked on how unproductive 2019 had been. Little did I know then what I know now. I only played one game this year due to all the craziness going on in the world.

But every cloud has a silver lining, because, in retrospect I was far more productive this year. I've managed to make more models. I've learnt a bunch of cool painting techniques.

Overall I did more, which has meant I've posted more pieces on the blog.

I'll call that a win.

Most of the blog has been about covering my path to acquiring all the old RAFM Heavy Gear sculpts I could lay my hands on. No doubt, some old Heavy Gear grognards watched in horror as I butchered converted them into proxy mecha for my Gate Walker universe. 

Cue manic laughter.

And I've also acquired a bunch of 1/48th Scopedogs too.I plan to photograph all the models for pictures for the set of mecha rules I'm writing. That's the plan. Whether the plan survives contact with the demands of the year ahead is another matter.

For one thing, it is taking me a lot longer to write the infantry TO&Es to pass onto a collaborator than I thought. Such is life.

Catch y'all later.

Summer Sun

Too hot to paint or build models in my spare time, so I've been out shooting instead.

In my imagination, I see myself riding through the glen, wind blowing through my hair, shooting arrows. If only. Mostly melting into a puddle or when indoors, huddling next to the aircon.

Anyway, enjoy the heatwave while it's here. This being Britain, it probably won't last.
  

General Data Protection Regulation Notice

   
As you may be aware, on 25 May 2018 the EU General Data Protection Regulation EU (2016)/679 (GDPR) comes into force in all EU member states. 

This Act applies to ‘personal data’ meaning any information relating to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified by reference to an identifier. It requires that personal data be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner, and that personal data be collected for specified and legitimate purposes. 

I currently do not run an email list and have no plans to do so in the foreseeable future. 

For those who subscribe to email updates for this blog, your personal data may be collected by the third party service. I have no control over the tool.  

Blog posts or comments may include personal data such as the names of people who've made comments or similar. These posts are often shared on social media including my Twitter and FaceBook pages. The privacy policies of Twitter and Facebook will apply to information posted on their websites.  

If you would like any personal data which is included in my blogposts or comments to be removed or have any questions, please email me through my contact widget.
   

Spartan Games: Game Over Man

  

 

Shocking news, Spartan Games are going out of business.  As an outsider they always seemed to be doing so well, what with the Halo game and all.  But reading the announcement here, it's obvious they over extended themselves.  I quote what I  think is the relevant section:

However, despite this it continued to encounter challenging trading conditions and it became clear this month that the company could not continue to service its liabilities, particularly given the burden imposed by the amounts owing to finance companies.

So that's three of their lines going down plus the 15mm Halo game.  And I was only looking at the Halo stuff the other week thinking about what might be useful to buy for my own gaming needs.

I wish all the staff the  very best in this difficult time for them.
  

Hammers & Nails

  

 

I caught a link to a YouTube video, which I happened to have time to watch, which is not normally the case, where it ended by asking the following question:

"At what point do you want to become an advocate and a demo person for the game, for very little to no benefit?"

It's a good question, been there and done that too.  My answer is–it depends.

What interested me about the future of Wargaming Demo Teams piece was that any answer will also depend on where you come from.  Clearly the person who is discussing this comes from a different place from me, as do a large number of the commentators who left their opinions on the video

My impression is that most think one should be paid for hours demonstrating a manufacturers game, with the details of the payment being up to the company.  Ultimately, it's a decision the demonstrators makes if they agree to the company's offer.

A separate question of does this make the person who is demonstrating a game an employee,  is probably subject to what classes as employment under the law of the land.

My question is, when did it become an expectation to be paid to do a hobby?  Because for the life of me a hobby is something you do for fun rather than it being work, because work is not spelt F.U.N. Call me an old fogey.  And yes I've been a demo agent and got perks for demoing games for the company, but I did it not for the perks, but because I loved the game I was demoing.

And as for the perks, quite frankly not worth the time and effort I put into preparing the games, and at one level were a total insult since the terms and conditions of said perks meant I largely had nothing I wanted to use them on.

I consoled myself that it encouraged me to do something I already enjoyed.  And the the company decided that they didn't want me to demo games with the miniatures I had, I stopped.  No regrets, despite some gnashing of teeth over what I see as the shortsightedness of the decision.

But you know, not once did it even cross my mind that I was an employee of the company.
   

An Update

I had planned on doing a late May the Fourth post last week but...

I meant to post a piece last week but on Friday I started having problems saving off some pictures I had processed and was unable to compile the image stack.  So, it wasn't until Saturday morning, after leaving said images to be processed on the computer overnight that I realized what the problem was.  I'd run out of space on my hard drive, which given I have 500GBs came as a bit of a shock.

However, the problem was that I had been saving images off onto my smaller partition, which I keep for my work, rather than the random stuff I decide to download off the net.

Given that each RAW file is approximately 16 MBs and each process TIFF file is 48MBs, and a stack consists of 25 images you can see how a partition might fill up.  I also realized that saving off the process TIFF images was taking up too much storage space.  So Sunday I spent the majority of the day reorganizing my hard drive, deleting extraneous TIFF files and doing a complete new back-up of my system.

Normal service will now be resumed.
  

Saturday's News

Saturday is the day I back up my work for the week.  Depending on how much work I've done this can range from ten minutes to about half an hour of fiddling around copying files before starting the Time Machine app on my Mac.  Then I look at my email  and the news.

Today I was interrupted by my partner telling me about what happened in France.

I'm reminded of a quote by Clausewitz, "War is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means."

However, wars that can't be won or make things worse are pointless.  All this does is tend to radicalize people into committing more acts of violence.  At the end of the day it will stop when people decide to sit down and talk.  Until then all we can do is be patient with something that is outside of our control.  The writer's Peter Harness and Steven Moffat of Dr Who Zygon Inversion episode said it better last week better than I can.

"So, let me ask you a question about this brave new world of yours.  When you’ve killed all the bad guys, and it’s all perfect and just and fair, when you have finally got it exactly the way you want it, what are you going to do with the people like you?  The troublemakers.  How are you going to protect your glorious revolution from the next one?"

Britain has a special relationship with France and we often make jokes about Agincourt, Waterloo etc but what has happened there is something we share and today we stand together with the people of France.
  

Tags Under Labels

 

Having blogged for five years with hundreds of posts and pictures I've tried to make it easier for people coming here for the first time to find stuff of interest to them.  My regular readers may well have spotted the additions and changes I've made to some of the tags in the the Lables list, and I thought it might be useful to explain what I've been doing.

Let's start with the WGIAGH & WGIAWOL tags first.

WGIAGH stands for wargaming is a Goddam hobby, and I use the tag on things when I'm having a rant about something that I think is important, but probably isn't all that important in the greater scheme of things.

WGIAWOL stands for wargaming is a way of life, and in this tag means this is a more humorous piece or has humorous content, which is not to be taken too seriously.

AAR stands for after action report, and basically this is a report on the games I've been playing.

As I've have lots of posts about BattleTech they've been split into house rules, miniatures, musing and OSR, which stands for old school rules.  Pretty much everything else should be self explanatory, and I've added a new category of gaming in general, which is musing about game mechanics and rules that can apply equally to most rule systems or adds observations about games that can apply to most games.

Want to know more citizen, then click on the labels and go explore.
  

Ogre Miniatures Furore

Bonjour Matelots ;-) 

Blog Advisory:  I have a snarky sense of humour, see example above, and if you are easily offended by it then perhaps you should stop reading now.  This advisory is to flag that I am British, live in England, which is a part of Europe, and that American cultural language and social assumptions are only one of many in the World.

I'm also incredibly old, and still talk about SF shows that were made before some of you were born.  So you may find it hard to understand my metaphors; in addition my humour may offend those who are sensitive to things that trigger a strong negative affective response.  I offer no apology if it does.  With those terms and conditions, and allowing for any errors and omissions, lets start.

If you've not come here from the SJG forums, then this post may fly over your head. 

The Ogre miniature line was put back into production last year as part of SJG promise from the Ogre Kickstarter.  After Xmas a price rise was announced, and a big furore arose over how much they were going to cost now.

As a result SJG pulled the line from sale to review their marketing and costs.

This has in turn caused another furore.  In my opinion, the attempt to avoid the adverse consumer reaction only generated bad feelings amongst the rabid Ogre community, but SJG were on a hiding to nothing over this matter, because no matter what they did they were caught in a Catch 22 scenario.

The arguments around the price of the miniatures provoked these four responses:

1. Why can't the miniatures be made through contract casting to make them cheaper?

2. What about licensing them out to another firm to cast who can make them cheaper?

3. You could always start your own casting company and watch the money roll in.

4. Wouldn't it be cheaper to make them in plastic?

I'm now going to take all of the above apart.

1.  First off you have to find a contract casting firm that will take on the job, and that is easier said than done.  Secondly, said contractor will charge SJG for the casting, because they want to make a profit too. 

Therefore, it is highly unlikely, that SJG can then sell the miniatures at a price that will make them a profit that is any cheaper than the price they put them up for sale after Xmas, which caused such an outrage in the first place.

If I were at SJG I think that I think I would be saying to myself something along the lines of, "Produce a few miniatures they said, make some money they said, have some fun they said, welcome to the party pal," (in John McClane's voice from Die Hard).

2. Licensing another firm to produce Ogre miniatures requires that there be a firm who is interested in paying SJG money for the privilege of casting miniatures of a range that the other firm will never own the intellectual property rights to.

This cuts into the other firms profit margin, because the cost of the license will have to be added as a factor into the final selling price.  Much easier to cast models that one owns the IP too, and be done with it.

3.  This comment was actually made by someone associated with SJG, but I've included it here, because it makes a very salient point.

It stems from my two previous comments that even if one had a pot full of cash to start up one's own business, one would inevitably be faced with the bottom line; which is keeping one's company profitable.  Assuming that one loves the SJG Ogre range so much that you just have to get out there and do it, then what you are faced with is tying yourself down to being a small manufacturer of someone else's IP.

Wave bye, bye to your free time, and don't expect to be driving a Ferrari, or the company having its own Learjet any time soon.

4. The simple answer is no, and saying that other wargame firms produce plastics misses the fact that they may have economies of scale that SJG will never have for a line of Ogre miniatures in plastic.  And it gets worse than that, because the quality of the plastics that one could afford are probably not going to satisfy the needs of the customers who want Ogre miniatures.

For example take CGLs plastic mechs that are included in their boxed sets of BattleTech.  While CGL have included improved models of four of the mechs, the rest of the plastic miniatures are best described as adequate; where adequate means good enough for getting players into the game, but not meeting the needs of players like me who are into miniatures, and who like modifying their models.

So, I shall continue to hope that SJG do start selling the metal miniatures again, but I will not be telling them how to do that, because you know what?  They are not stupid, and know all of the above far better than some random person on the internet with an opinion.  "So been there, chewed gum, kicked ass, and if anyone asks have I paid my dues; the cheque is in the post pal," (in the voice of Jack Burton from Big Trouble in Little China for those too young to know).

Four Months

   
The last four months have been a bit of a drudge.  I'm currently on one month fixed term contracts since Xmas, and I'm struggling at times not to lose the plot.

However, I've started the ball rolling for getting the next campaign game arranged.

I've been looking at my unpainted lead mountain, and it doesn't look too bad.  I'm even looking forward to Justicar's resin Monster MAC mecha arriving in a few weeks.  So, I'm back, and posts will restart.

After all I've got the last planning session to write up, if nothing else, to do.
   

On Being Spammed

   
It seems that this blog has become a target for spam.  I thought the sarcastic comments quite a nice touch too.

"Thank you for this blog.  That's all I can say.  You most definitely have made this blog into something thats eye opening and important.  You clearly know so much about the subject, you've covered so many bases.  Great stuff from this part of the internet.  Again, thank you for this blog."

So I will be switching the moderation for posts feature on, and apologise for this.
   

Historical Wargamers Have it Easy

I  know that the title of this piece will cause a bit of controversy, but it is made partly in response to  Neil Shuck and Henry Hyde's podcasts View from the Veranda, where they assert that Sci-Fi & Fantasy don't have to do research for their armies. I inferred from this comment that they think that having to do research somehow makes historical wargaming a more serious activity requiring dedication to achieve the goal of fielding an army, whereas Sci-Fi & Fantasy just require one to buy an  easily digested source book.

Neither of them would appear to be anti Sci-fi & Fantasy, far from it in fact, as there is clearly evidence that Neil is a player an collector of Sci-fi & Fantasy wargame armies, and Henry plays Neil. However, I really want to beg to differ about having to do research makes historical wargaming somehow harder, and or that one has to be more serious about the hobby.

Okay, I will admit that I have a research background, it goes hand-in-hand with my job, and I have to be able to interpret the results of research trials and apply said result in my work. This without doubt gives me more skills when it comes to researching stuff, but given that any person who can read can go to a library, or in this age of the internet search on Google, I can't see that a determined person can't find out all they need to know about any given subject. Whether or not what they find is correct, or not, is of course another matter indeed.

Of course, if a person is not determined to follow their passion then that is another matter. In this case they want the stuff in an easy to digest format, and preferably be able to buy the miniatures and rules to go, which is all well and dandy until you realise that one still has to paint all the stuff you've bought up. And this is the Elephant in the room, which in all fairness to Neil and Henry they do acknowledge and muse upon possible solutions.

The other problem is that miniature wargames can segueway into military modelling. This is epitomised by the fastidiousness over the correct colours for painting uniforms and the details of the uniforms and equipment carried. I always have a wry smile to myself when this topic comes up, because of the old adage that a unit that passes inspection is not ready for combat. and any unit ready for combat will not pass inspection. You only have to look at the field expedient changes and modification to the gear that is worn by serving soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan to see that this is as true to day as it ever was. In my opinion this fastidiousness is driven by the scale/size of the figures that are being played with. I'm with Peter from Baccus in that 6mm is the one true wargames scale.

Actually I'm not completely with Peter, because doctrinally 6mm is not a scale, but rather a very loose definition of the size of a figure that varies depending on assumptions made about the height of a man, and how to measure said height, with complications like variable average heights across the ages.

However, in principle, smaller is better and I would consider 3mm to 10mm, where the average is approximately 6mm as being a good size for miniature toy soldiers, if you want to play anything other than small skirmish wargame. For me the figures need to be as close as possible to the ground scale that one is playing over if one is going to make the most of the benefits of using toy soldiers, rather than having all the downsides that toy soldiers bring to a game when the ground scale is grossly out of proportion.

The topic of ground scale deserves a blog entry in its own right, because what I might consider proportionate others might consider foolish. I'll come to this another time.

Anyway, I've meandered off the topic of research and historical wargaming versus Sci-Fi & Fantasy wargaming, and why I think that neither is easier to do than the other. Quite simply if you are modelling a British WW2 regiment, you chose the one you want to represent, a period where they are deployed and with a little bit of faffing you will be able to get an ORBAT (order of battle) and away you go. Painting the uniforms is then just a matter of finding a paint that matches the colour the uniforms were, and Bob's your Uncle and Charly's your Aunt.

On the the other side of the coin if one is making up an army for a Sci-Fi campaign, and I will use my own Mummerset one as an example, I had to decide what colour were the uniforms would be, how the platoons would be organised, how many men, what sort of infantry would they be, how many platoons to a company, how many company's to a battalion, and how many battalions to a regiment? Admittedly I could just pick figures off the top of my head, but I know that this stuff comes from doctrine. So I had to think what sort of doctrines would the armed forces of Mummerset have? And then I had to think what was the main arm of the army?

All of this actually required a lot of historical knowledge into how armies grow and develop wen reacting to past wars fought and the introduction of new technology. Of course one could by a book on Ork armies, but I'm not playing Games Workshop Warhammer 40K, and I think to label all Sci-Fi & Fantasy wargamers as people who play Games Workshop products rather blinds one to all the other wargamers that are getting on and doing there own things, like for example Gruntz and the Society of Science Fiction & Fantasy Wargamers , not to mention BattleTech of course!
  

Reviews Versus Testimonials

  

I asked myself what is the difference between both, as could think of quite a few?  First off, a testimonial is, practically by definition, a positive endorsement of something, or someone. There's nothing wrong with that, but everyone understands that it is all about singing the praises, so it has limited value, because it only tells you one side of the story. 

A review has a different function as it looks at both what is good and bad about what is being reviewed. In academic terms a review will search for other work that covers the same topic and summarise those reviews, which turn was a review that had searched for previous works that had discussed the same topic. As can be imagined this is quite a recursive process, but what saves it from becoming stodgy is the critical element that removes weaker work in favour of stronger work. So through trial and error a researcher can weight the evidence, and look at the balance of probability to hone theories to see if they fit the facts, which is the academic equivalent of the Darwinian process in action.

So what purpose would a game review serve? Does it comment on the production values, the game mechanisms, the playability, or the experiential process? I would argue that it would need to address all of these things, and probably a few more like value for money, support for the game and accessibility for the new player too. 

However, such a review would be a monumental piece of work, so what you tend to get is an edited highlights of the reviewers concerns about the game, rather than a more objective review that places the game in its historical context. 

Then there is the thorny issue of offending the games company, and a writer will offend if they are perceived as being critical and damaging sales of the game. This is mirrored in academia where the issue of who is funding the research colours how much you can trust the results of the research. It's called bias, and research reviews have to declare their biases. When was the last time you read a review in the commercial press where the reviewer declared there bias?

Ah I hear you say, what about the non-funded reviews posted on the internet for example? A good point, but more often than not they fall into testimonials that say they like the product, or a hate-fest where they say this product sucks, because it does not meet the reviewers needs. Neither are particularly useful to either the buyer, or the manufacturer of the game.

Hence my reluctance to really review games that I like, but as and when I have the time to analyse my biases, do a search of previous games in a genre, and summarise the game mechanisms, playability and experiential quality of said game, I will.

   

Three Types of People

  
There are three types of people in this world, those who can count, and those who can't! Sorry I couldn't help myself. Seriously though, Steve Williams, otherwise known as Typhoon, argued that there are three types of people who are fans of BattleTech:

1. The ones who play for the Battlemechs.

2. The ones who play for the background of the universe.

3. And the ones who play for a combination of the two above.

When he wrote this last year I went away and thought about where I stood in this scheme of things. At the time I thought I might be a three, but acknowledged that I started as a one, and it is only recently that I've gotten more into the background of the verse.

However, I'm not sure that this is even true. I think that people's views evolve and are not static, at least mine are. Though I would admit that some beliefs I have are strongly tied into my personality traits, which have been described both as passionate and assertive. Alternatively, I've been described as artistic and highly strung, even been described as a loose cannon, which is a bit scary.

So here is me being me and looking at my passion for BattleTech. The reason that I still play BattleTech to this day, inspite of a 13 plus year break while I got on with the rest of my life, is that it feeds my imagination. Well, more correctly Science Fiction has always fed my imagination, and BattleTech is SF, and even though this is perilously close to a circular argument, the point is that in the original BattleTech universe the battlemechs had changed the rules of warfare.

That of all the things about BattleTech was the one thing that drew me to the game. I don't care that the idea of giant walking battle mecha makes no sense, because for me idea being played with was the "what if they did?" The background also had the romance of knights in armour fighting against the end of civilisation was, if totally wrong in so many ways, utterly romantic. A world where the darkness has fallen and the people strive to survive against the odds has certain charming opportunities those who like to play games with the great what if?

Given this position, I find it easy to accept that I don't fit the classic BattleTech player profile, because I will gladly admit to running with the ideas I like, and leaving the ones I don't for others to enjoy. Unfortunately, the downside of such an attitude is that I question everything, and will tinker with rules and stuff as I see fit, which means that I don't always see eye-to-eye with more conservative players, whatever they play. So for me it is all about being able to use my imagination to create my own stories of war, betrayal and honour. I guess I'm just one of the people in the world who can't count!
   

BattleTech Jumping the Shark Reboot

On the official CBT forum there has been a rather long thread about has BattleTech jumped the shark with 22 pages of repetition?

To summarise, the thread topic discussed  the moment when a series delivers the ultimate desire of the characters; from the "Happy Days" scene where the Fonz always dreams of jumping over a shark and gets to realise his dream. 

If your dream has been realised, then what is there left to do?

I'm not sure I would agree with that interpretation, as for me "jumping the shark" implies more of the idea that a story has gone beyond believability. But YMMV on that, especially with something involving giant walking machines?

There is this idea that the in game ComStar aims, namely the coming of the third transfer, would also mean that BattleTech had jumped the shark. It is suggested that the formation of a new Star League would be that third transfer. 

From a meta-gaming perspective I'd argue that one could see the real transfers of the game coming from changes in the rules, as they have evolved over time.

If you agree, then using this analogy one can argue that real transfer was from the 3025 setting to the Clan invasion of 3050.

I would argue that this fundamentally changed  the game. Even though on the surface the rules are the same, because the game balance changed. Battlemechs became brittle eggs that could be cracked open by superior firepower, rather than something that had to be slowly ground down to be destroyed (barring lucky shots that is).

Then the second transfer was the introduction of Clicky tech, and with it the Age of Darkness. This unfortunately crashed & burned causing a reversion to the "classic form of BattleTech". 

Now we have the third transfer, which is the introduction of new rules for the Word of Blake faction to take into account their use of cybernetics. This basically a rule fix to uplift the Inner Sphere to match the Clans and lead the game into the redefined new Dark Ages of the 3130 Battletech universe.

Rant on: 

As I said on the CBT forum, my only problem with the Jihad is that there was not enough destruction done by the Word of Blake as of yet.

I want to see billions of people starving to death from the repercussions of war. Billions more dying from crops failing due to a lack of fertilizers and pesticides, and I want to billions dying from disease arising from unclean water, and a lack of medicines.

I want to see the remains of humanity reduced to scavenging from the rubble. I want a future where a lance of battlemechs can rule a world, where the pilots are like gods, lording it over the cowered and subdued populations of denuded worlds.

I want to see the Word of Blake/Comstar reap the whirlwind. If we see thousands of nukes raining down on the planets of the Inner Sphere during the Word of Blake retreat, then I could see how peace would break out and mechs mothballed for later on.

Showing that war leads to widespread famine, the rise of pestilence,and outbreaks of plagues. Would be a good message to send to the players that these are consequences of apocalyptic wars. Of course all the players will be moaning about how their favourite faction was robbed etc., but that is life.  

Rant off.

Like it or not, we know that due to the "second transfer" that BattleTech moves to the era Republic of the Sphere. For me this is in and of itself is not a bad place to play games of BattleTech. 

It is an ideal period for small unit actions of giant battling mecha-on-mecha action, which is where IMNSHO the rules work best. 

As a diehard old time fan, described on the BattleTech forums as a Retarded-Old-Retread^TM, and proud of it too. I welcome the return of BattleTech to its roots of small unit actions, where desperate home defense units field industrial mechs as a futuristic variant of tactical trucks seen today.

However, nothing lasts forever, not even D&D, without a reboot.

Will BattleTech need a reboot? Probably over due for one, but I think that the likelihood of it happening is small.