The Mechbay

Ep 98: 2025, only 1000 years to go...

• MechWarrior Josh, Denham, & Steve

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The Mechbay talks about the 2025 of BattleTech and look forward 

Talk with the Mechbay and other BattleTech fans on their Discord

Archons

  • Jeremy "Splash" Johnson piloting Starslayer 3C
  • Cataphract 40 piloting Nightstar NSR-9J
  • John "Kill 5000 Crab-Backs" Weitzel
  • Aron "Skyfox" Sergeant
  • Andrew Weisner
  • Jacob Hass
  • Sam "DesertDream2" Burling
  • Danny "Kyro" Loss piloting Flashman FLS-8K
  • Will Donta
  • Jolly Tall Guy
  • Ashpin

Mechwarriors

  • Duncan Rhodes
  • Bob piloting Chimera CMA-2K
  • Magnum Danger piloting Aquagladius AQS-3
  • Byzantine Falcon
  • Douglas McAuliffe
  • Chad "Storm" Evans piloting Hatchetman HCT-8S
  • Rex "Redneck" Rawhide piloting Sarath-OB
  • Eric Smailys
  • Jordan Cooper
  • Anthony Emmel
  • Paul Dennis
  • Scot Pickering
  • Nic Sarna
  • Oreio8991
  • Gustavo Archila
  • John Schmidt
  • Dave Romberger
  • Aaron Cahall
  • Grimnar
  • Keith Dennard
  • Chris Cannon
  • Mike Ashkewe
  • Tom Unanimous
  • Douglas Triggs
  • Ed "Ironmag" Magilton  Highlander WHM-7A
  • Vhaelun
  • Douglas Triggs
  • Nate Palmer
  • Jack the Jaqattack
  • DJ Skinny
  • Eric Smailys
  • Jeff Campbell
  • Steak
  • Wilson McBurns (Certified Mech Foot Actuator Inspector)
  • Matt "Cross Electric Designs"
  • Masonic Boom
  • Kyle Nelson
  • Wargaming Wanderlust
  • Geoffrey Campitiello

Cadets

  • Steve Maisel (Average CRB-27 pilot)
  • Chris "Jesty" Pribanick Hammerhead
  • Thomas Klinkhammer piloting a Longbow 13C
  • John Haynes
  • Stewart Hughes
  • Travis Gist
  • Uncrezamatic "Whizard"
  • Bob Arens
  • Matt LeBaron
  • Donald Looker
  • Mitch "Minotaur" Grant piloting Thunderbolt 5SE
  • Harris "Ramshackle"  piloting Cataphract CTF-4L
  • MetalEd
  • John Garnier
  • Richard
  • KZ
  • David
  • Zach Torrence "Metalzarak" piloting Black Hawk H
  • Lawrence Franchini
  • Tom Bovee
  • Janine Nichols
  • Tim Kleinschrot
  • Scott Boehmer
  • David Raynes
  • Dan A
  • Carl Zachary
  • David Seletyn
  • Steve Maisel
  • Piotr
  • J. Allen Hammer
  • Chris "Twain" Dasher" Montgomery
  • Ben Jumper
  • Blunder Dome
  • Chad A Lynema
  • Arthur Garlick
  • Aaron Rasalhague Forever
  • Travis Callan
  • Honic
  • Scot Pickering
  • Phil "Phaz" Abramowitz
  • Mage "12th Veygan" "Nightstar NSR-9J" Ranger
  • The Goose Whisperer - Thunderbolt TDR-5
  • Seth - Whitefox - Executioner G
  • Zemer
  • Carlos Anguizola
  • Steak
  • Dominic Bulone
  • James Elliot
  • Michael Bryant
  • Chris Bury
  • Andrew Hodges
  • Connor Kirchhof
  • Eric Dacus
  • Pete Noverini
  • Lance Davis
  • Jacob Hass
  • Lotspeech
  • Joshua Franklin
  • Jacob Irby
  • Andrew HeyZeus Jahnke piloting MON-66b
  • Matthew Brady
  • Robot Parking
  • An Actual Robot
  • Adam Mac
  • Michael Lepchenske
  • Cory Foote
  • William R
  • Peter Kahle
  • jafr86
  • KaiserFalk
  • lurski Lispers
  • Promethious7
  • William Becker with a PHX-3PL
  • Sean Masters
  • Kevin Bowman
  • William Davis
  • Hausu
  • Donald Looker
  • Andrew Dennard
  • Nate Handy
  • Nick Cozzolino
Josh:

What's going on, MechWars? I'm your host, Josh. I've got my co-host, Steve, the man with three blood names, with me today. Hello. And Denim. Howdy, howdy. And we are the MechBay Podcast, your number one source for all things casual to competitive tabletop battle tech. And today's episode is brought to you by MechWare Aeon PG, MechWare 105 Gunner, and Cadet Rick Hewitt. These guys not only fuel my mechs, but they fuel my love of AP AC20 rounds. They're effective. Well, the new rules, AP rounds are. Yeah. Yeah. Precision's out. AP's in, boys. Welcome back. We're in the new year. Woo! We all survive? We did it. Uh in some form or fashion. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if any of you listeners listened to the After Dark episode where we talked about our Christmas trauma, but uh we all made it through that, apparently.

Steve:

I sent out pictures of my tree. It didn't get any better than that. I liked your tree, Denham. It was very it was very 2025 in a nutshell. I tried.

Josh:

So first episode of 2026, and oh man, what do we have to do? Well, let's talk about 2025 as an episode. So, but first, let's get some hobby news, hobby progress, games played, and some tales from the hiring hall. So, first off, the only news I have coming in off of our last episode is the Battletech Playtest Missions packet came out. And I skimmed through that. I have not even fully read through it because it dropped and then holidays happened. So, but there was some good stuff out there. Like that one had a lot of work put into it, and I think that is going to be the lasting one that we are all excited for because we're all real tired of playing kill and variations of kill. So like, did y'all see that there's weather effects and new things like that in there?

Steve:

I did. I took a very brief look at it. I truthfully the holidays have been an absolute, you know, uh time sink for me. Uh lots of running around. So I didn't give it the attention that it really needs to. But seeing as this episode is not about that playtest packet, correct, I did not do as much research as I should have, but I will before we cover that subject. So yeah, we knew what we were not doing.

Josh:

I'm happy. I'm happy that they've released all the playtest packets. This is the last one, which we will then get to see, give our feedback, and then it's off to the printers. So chop shop, folks.

Steve:

These are going to be in the new battlenech manual. Or something like that. So it's going to be part of the core system, so people don't get the box set and be like, well, now what do I do? Yeah. And this is a what do I do? So um I'm really glad they put these out early enough for people to mess around with and give their opinions. Um I'm the same boat as you guys. I have not had time to delve deeply into these, so I'm looking forward to checking it out. And speaking of books, Denim, I do know that there was an announcement that Force Manual Mercenaries is listed on Amazon for January 26th. So that should be hopefully coming out by month. Oh, yeah. I mean, I I also heard that it's coming out soon, but I've heard it's coming out soon for a while. From what I've heard, it's just waiting for the last few things. Like the book is done. It's just waiting for I don't like final format or something like that. I don't know. And I think we're also excited to get the two Creative Force packs by as well. So I think I already have those pre-ordered, and I have heard that they are coming out very soon. Like very, very soon. That's exciting. Yeah, I am very excited.

Josh:

The only other thing I have is Shrapnel 23 is out and available in print. So yeah. Everyone likes shrapnel, right?

Steve:

I really do. I still like it. It's been out for a few years. I still enjoy it. Steve's nodding for those of you who aren't watching this live. Yeah, it's an audio-only format. I get it. But no, I did what would you like me to kick in my two cents of yes, I also like shrapnel? We do want to hear that. Like we all like shrapnel, it's fun.

Josh:

I'm about what what number did I say that was? Uh 23? Yeah, I'm about 129, where I just like I can't keep up with this.

Steve:

Oh, I I can't read them cover to cover. Like I have not read every single word of every single shrapnel, but I have read a lot of a lot of them. So, you know, it's kind of like the old reader's digests with all the short stories. You just pick and choose until you finish them all.

Josh:

Anyways, let's move on to some hobby progress. Boys, it's like a month. There were holidays in that time, though.

Steve:

Oh, yeah.

Josh:

Did we get painting, Steve?

Steve:

Some, actually. You know, I so in order to do this properly, we need to take the whole gap in time as a as one unit here because uh it's a new year and we did get some new toys, and because buying is hobby progress, so is receiving gifts. Uh I finally got my hand.

Josh:

We've always counted that as does not count. Wow, what receiving gifts doesn't count? Receiving gifts does not count as hobby progress, purchasing does.

Steve:

Okay, well, what if it was purchased on my behalf? Transit of property still counts.

Josh:

See, yeah. Unfortunately, every episode prior to this, gifts are not hobby progress, but we will allow it for the news portion of the hobby progress.

Steve:

I don't remember that bylaw. I'll have to check that out. Take out the sacred text and look up which section of the as my job as lore master, I shall dig through these references and eventually get back to you, maybe in like three to six years. Anyway, we did finally get my hands on a copy of Aces, which is pretty exciting. And I did do a little bit of painting, mostly at my son's request. Uh for Christmas, we gave him well, I gave him and his brother all of my Death Ray design steel rift models, because truthfully, I probably wasn't going to use them for anything, and they like seeing robots, and I want to give them robots to spur their interest in battle tech. So I gave them all these things for them to pick and choose and paint and however they wanted. But of course, he said, Dad, I want these painted yellow. And I went, Oh. Super easy. Yeah, we'll just slap that on there, no problem, kiddo. Uh so I did use this opportunity to practice some of my yellow through an airbrush uh with a magenta base coat. Ooh. And then so yeah, I'm trying to use the yellow contrast paint through an airbrush so it doesn't actually contrast but acts more of a tint.

Josh:

Yep. That's exactly how it works through an airbrush. Yeah.

Steve:

So I haven't had my airbrush very long, so this is kind of new to me, but you use a magenta undercoat and then a heavy dry brush of like gray, and then just a light dry brush of white on those exposed tips, and then you put it through the airbrush, and when that airbrush yellow touches the magenta, it makes almost like a like a really rich orange. So it looks like shaded yellow, like if it's in like an underarm or a like a groin area that doesn't get a lot of sunlight, it uh makes a really, really rich uh orange, which is super nice. So we're gonna play with that because I'm gonna end up doing this for my canopens eventually anyway. Uh so it was good practice, and my son was thrilled, so that was fun. Plus, we got quality time with the kiddo doing battletech stuff. Steve, why doesn't your groin get a lot of sunlight? There are certain things you should never see the light of day. Well then.

Josh:

I think that technique is actually called slap chop, where it's uh yeah, you uh highlight and then you use a contrast as a tent.

Steve:

I was always in the impression that slap chop was just done with a brush and then you let contrast do its normal thing. You still want to undercoat doing your volumes, right? But I thought there was a different name for that. It was like smash chop. No, no. There's like underpainting or volumetric highlights. I don't I have a hard time keeping all these techniques named properly in my brain. But I don't know, we're trying it. It's it we're getting results. I think I can probably fine-tune it a little more before I get to my knopens, but hey, practice is good.

Josh:

That's it. I'm just happy you painted stuff.

Steve:

Something.

Josh:

Yeah. Denim, what about you? You get any painting done?

Steve:

It's December. I do so much battle tech throughout the year. December tends to be my more off time. Um, I did some painting, I did some 3D printing, but it was mostly for hero quest.

Josh:

Okay.

Steve:

You having fun with that though? Oh, I made it through the whole me and my kid got through all of the uh the box set you can get target. It's got 10 uh 10 campaign missions in there, and we made it through that entire thing, and it was fantastic. Had a ton of fun.

Josh:

Nice, nice.

Steve:

Josh, what about you?

Josh:

Uh, I have been painting my Halo Flash that I picked up in November. So I think I got an Elite done and four Spartans, and I just finished uh ODST Dare today. So I've actually been like one model every like couple days. Is that Nathan Fillian's team? See, I'm not a big Nathan Fillian fan. I really yeah, no, I I think I'm gonna leave Buck at home most days.

Steve:

That look is not a happy look. Denim's like, how dare you? How dare you besmirch Mr. Fillion's name? It's a new year.

Josh:

I'm being polite. You heard it from the mech bay first, folks. If you can't say something nice on the audio only format, don't say anything at all.

Steve:

Pretty sure that was from Bambi. Was that from Bambi? I don't know, a thump or something. Anyway, have you had okay, let me back up. Painting humanoid forms versus mech forms. Anything different? Anything more challenging, less challenging for you?

Josh:

Actually, yes. It's kind of been like I've had to relearn how to paint. So that's why I've like watched probably a couple hours of painting videos, just to be like, okay, if it's a square shoulder like a grasshopper, I know what to do. The front is one color, the corners are another color. But on all these humans and elites and Spartans, it's like, oh, that's a nice curve. Like an elite's head is just a bowl, essentially. Like, and I remembered why I did not like painting Warhammer, but using like the dry brush techniques that I do a lot with my battle tech stuff, it's really easy, especially with the airbrush, like one your base coat color on, and then a little highlight up top, and then dry brushing even higher from that.

Steve:

I I have to agree with that, because yeah, painting the hero quest guy is for sure very, very different than painting a mech. Yeah. Agreed.

Josh:

The big thing I'd say is I've not used null oil and I'm not using metallic paint, like kind of what I'm doing with Battletech. I'm I've got some black Templar contrast paint that I've 50-50 thinned down. I'm kind of using that in like the slap chop method where paint the under, what is it, like the undergarments of all the dudes, which is all black. Like all of them have like black undershirts and underpants and whatnot. So it's like, oh, well, I'll paint that gray, and then highlight all that with like gray and white, and then put the contrast paint over that so it like pre-darkens the recesses, but also darkens the highlights, so it kind of brings it all together.

Steve:

I feel like yeah, exactly. Cause for me with the the hero quest, I once I paint the model gray, I tilt it and spray the underside with black, and then I just paint it so that creates a shadows. Um they're not wearing any armor like the Halo guys are, so it is different from that. But it does a really good job of showing off the way the cloth hangs over a belt or something. Yeah. Yeah. I've been when I do like either Dungeons and Dragons miniatures or um I've support someone on Patreon who kicks out quite a few like models. So when I did my um Helldivers units, and I he just released a whole bunch of uh Starship Trooper miniatures. So I've been kind of painting some of those uh for fun. I haven't finished anything really, but I do like contrast paints for fabrics and for humanoid shapes. I don't necessarily love contrast or speed paints over max. I'm obviously practicing that with the yellow, but in general I prefer regular acrylics. But for humanoid shapes and organic matter, I think contrast is a really, really good way to go.

Josh:

Yeah. Yeah, when when the paint can find the recesses that are more natural rather than a hard edge, it works a little better. So but I'm having fun painting, and isn't that what the hobby's all about? Should be. Should, maybe. Well, good on all of us for getting at least something painted. Let's move on to some games played. I'll go right now. I didn't get any games played of Battletech. I got some more Halo Flashpoint in with my wife. That's fun. But I uh I've got some hiring haul, so don't worry, folks. I did play Battletech, but for games play, Steve, what have you been up to?

Steve:

Uh I had the distinct pleasure of having Will be from out of town, met him at the Battle for the Bay out in Maryland. He ended up being in Detroit for work and said, Hey, do you know anybody who's nearby? Or I'm like, hey, I'm nearby. We can meet at the local game shop. So Will came out and we met up and ended up playing a Hinterlands game, but I didn't have an active contract, and he did, so I said, Fine, I'll play. Uh he brought his Unseen, which uh contained a Thunderbolt 11 SE and a Phoenix Hawk 3PL. And I just brought a Wolfhound and an Argus because I like that combo and I think it's fun. And in short, my goal as Op4 is rough him up bad enough that it's costly to repair things and maybe take down one mech, but I'm not here to ruin anybody's contract, especially if I've got nothing on the line. You're opfor, not pirate. Right, look. That was my mindset going in. I'm like, all right, I had him on the ropes for like maybe two turns. Uh, this is the mission where me as op four, it was my job to defend the middle of the map for eight turns and then bounce out off the back. We played on the Badlands map or the Barrenlands map. Uh, so pretty open overall. My Argus, I spawned with an Argus and a um von Luckner. So I was hitting his Thunderbolt for decent damage right up until turn three. When the Wolfhound enters the map on turn two, shot a whole volley of everything, missed every single shot. Turn three rolls around. My Wolfhound takes a random head hit. I mean, it was like an LBX pellet or a SRM or something, like just some minor, minor plink of damage, and you roll snake eyes. It's nap time for the wolfhound. He falls down, and all of a sudden, all of my pressure disappears because the Argus had that rack five just putting punishment out there, trying to take down his Phoenix Hawk. And when that wolfhound fell over, on the plus side, when that wolfhound passed out and fell over, it avoided a kick to the head. So I'm like, yes, I dodged the head kick, but he was knocked out and he did not wake up. Suffering from success, literally. Yeah, well, it was not good, right? The Pegasus took out the left torso on that wolfhound, his BSP Pegasus took that out while it was napping. Uh by turn seven, I mean, an Argus fighting a Thunderbolt wasn't really a fair fight. That's a fairish fight. That's a fair ish. That Thunderbolt jumps real far, and my Argus does not have jump jets. So I was trying to chase him around the map. Uh, and then when his Phoenix Hawk got behind my Argus, it was just it was not good. It was not good. So, in short, I had tried to put someone in force withdrawal and maybe like, you know, scare him a little bit. I completely failed in that endeavor. I scratched his paint. I don't even think I went internal on either Mac.

Josh:

Or let him scratch your belly. Yeah. He got some amazing. I don't show up.

Steve:

I mean, he took out both Macs. So he'll he got awesome salvage if he wanted it. So I don't know the details of his contract, but Will, I hope you appreciate that Argus. I like it a lot. Hope you do more of it and more with it than I did. But it was nice seeing you. Thank you for coming out and reaching out when you were coming to Detroit. So if anybody else is traveling for work and you happen to be in the area, if I can't make it, I'm pretty sure I can find you someone in the area who is free to meet up and play a game. So don't stranger.

Josh:

Well, better luck next time, Steve.

Steve:

Yeah, look, I'm just happy I got to play a game, especially with the busyness of the holidays. I didn't think it was going to be possible. So we made an extra effort because someone was in from out of town. So big true. Denim. Well, like I said, I I played the entire first light campaign for Hero Quest. And then when I was uh by myself, I just played the Metal Gear solid board game because uh you can do that entire thing solo. So in December, for most of December, I didn't get any actual battle tech games in. No.

Josh:

That's it's okay. It's okay. It's our off season.

Steve:

It is. Wait a minute. It's okay when you don't play a game, but when I don't play a game, it's Steve, it's one game a month. How could you not get one game a month then? I see how this works.

Josh:

I expect more for my men. Uh-huh.

Steve:

When we get to how many games we did play this year, you'll see why. Okay. All right.

Josh:

All right. Well, Tales from the Hiring Hall. I've got some Tails.

Steve:

Excellent.

Josh:

Are these the Solar Flares? These are the Solar Flares. And we were up against the Orion's Belt Mercenary Company. Guys, I'm a I'm gonna wrap up four games in 40 seconds.

Steve:

Excellent. Let's do it. Timer started now.

Josh:

We're on Procyon. We are fighting Radical Blakist. Makes sense. We're the attacker. They're the defender. We land. Mission one, it's a pushback. It's scale two. I got 130 some BSPs. Yeah. Because it's more more BSP on top of your BSP if you're the attacker and pushback. I took a arrow four carrier BSP. Ew. It's essentially the only way to get homing arrow four rounds, and it requires you to have a tag. And guess what has a tag in the solar flares? Charger. The Spartan, not the charger. We're gonna put that one as permanent record, folks. Don't worry. Yeah, that Spartan missed no tags. Each turn, BSP Aero 4 comes down. It's a four up to hit, guys. But that man lost a lot. I think he surrendered turn four. We played game two, which was recon. I lost because I overextended and tried to scan everything. And he took a lot of BSPs, and I had to scan all those, and those are dumb. Uh game three, I brought the BSP Air 4 carrier back because it's pushback again. He surrendered turn three.

Steve:

It worked the first time.

Josh:

Yeah, no, it worked the first time. Did the exact same. He surrendered by turn three, and then game four. We essentially played. I had to scan some buildings and brought the air four carrier and he surrendered turn one. And he did not even play game five. He was just like you win. Alright, let's talk about the BSP Aero 4 carrier.

Steve:

Yeah. There are good BSPs, and then there are BSPs that make you make friends.

Josh:

See, I thought long and hard about this. For context, everyone, the BSP arrow 4 carrier is like 58 points, I think we determined. And it's movement three, team M1, it has the same health as a LRM carrier. It's a destruction check seven, threshold five. So it's pretty average, pretty slow. Uh the benefit is it fires two arrow four rounds a turn. It can fire those moving or not moving. The problem is it does not work if there is no tag. Like it only hits things that are tagged. So my Spartan has a tag. My Spartan has to roll to hit the tag, and then on a four up, that arrow fork fires, and it's the last thing to hit that turn. So it has to be the last thing. I have to do all my other mech damage, and then the air four lands last. I only miss two out of my eight turns of aerofor thing. That's not even like miss, that's like failing the four up to hit.

Steve:

Like the tag how much damage do those things do when they land? 20. 20 in one hit. Yeah, it's yeah. Oh, it's it's so it's like getting hit with an AC20, it doesn't even break into clusters. No, six number of maps away. Oh yeah, you don't have to have line of sight. Like yuck.

Josh:

Yuck. So my thought was it's almost twice as much as a demolisher that you can upskill and do 20 times two, and then like depending on the mission, and you're either forward deploying it or you're running it with other little things. But for me, it's like for my scale two fours, it's all it's my whole BSP. Like I really only get that. And I have to hit the tag. Is it better or is it just the psychological thing? My opponent is not safe as long as he gets tagged.

Steve:

What is the gunnery of the Spartan? Three. Yeah. Yeah.

Josh:

Yeah.

Steve:

I think that falls in the camp of that's just better. And uh I don't know. I I mean it's it's super cheesy for sure.

Josh:

Most of my tag rolls were like on sevens or eights, so I just got lucky on the turns where I was like, okay, I'm going to shoot at tag the lowest TMM target the I can do. Was it like I don't think I was bullying? It was just like, hey, he's got his sniper mech sitting in woods. Oh, my 5'8 assault mech with tag is gonna run up to it and tag it.

Steve:

Yeah, I don't think it was bullying the first time, but taking up multiple missions, that seems like bullying.

Josh:

Yeah. I mean he changed his packet from trying to outplay me to I'm just going to alpha strike the Spartan.

Steve:

But then you realize once you've got someone frustrated enough to just be like, no, I quit. That's bullying. Yeah. Like that's that nobody's having fun in that situation. And you know me, I know you and I play play battle tech differently. I I am much more in it so that everybody's having fun. That's uh that's just my that's just how I play it though. I think for me, it's like I don't necessarily mind the arrow four carrier, but I think for me, I wouldn't bring it unless my opponent was playing op four and not running their own contract, right? Because it like like I played with Will this time, right? Like I didn't care if my stuff lived or died. I didn't have anything in, you know, I didn't have anything in the uh no skin in that game, right? As it were. So something like this, if I were to have that for multiple games, I I might say, like, all right, I don't really want to risk my pilots again to 20 damage thumps, you know, could very easily you know hit a torso and cord out or ahead or something like that and cause an ammo explosion. Or you know, I don't lose my pilots, especially if it's uh on a four-up, you know. Yeah.

Josh:

No, I I agree. It was just like in the first game, it was like, okay, I I had legged two of his commander mech and his other like marauders. So I was like, okay, he's down to a bushwhacker and fire starter, like he doesn't have a lot left, so I accept the uh surrender honorably. Like you can take your mechs, I don't want them. The next game, we played out the full game. I lost. Like, I wasn't winning the recon. Like, my force is not reconable. Uh but then we played the pushback again. I was like, okay, I'm gonna take the same thing I took. How are you gonna change up? And he didn't change up his tactic as awhile. Like, I was like, okay, you're not gonna take any strikes like aerospace to try to shoot the BSP carrier. You're not taking any fast skimmers to try to shoot it. You're losing. Or just see. No, I'm just like expecting because that's what my brand, because I was like, hey, is it cool on the second game? I was like, is it cool if I take the Aero 4 carrier? And he was like, Yeah, that's okay to take. You didn't take it last time and you lost. So if you want to take it again now, you can. And I was like, okay. And he's like, okay, I'm gonna take the targeting computer BSP that hits on four up for a Goss rifle, and I'm gonna take the demolisher with Goss. And I was like, okay, so you're you're just big damage tank. But at the same you're getting both of that for my BSP arrow for. And I was like, okay, but you know I'm taking that, so you could counterplay it. And he's like, nope, I'm just gonna try to kill a Spartan.

Steve:

Yeah, and it depends if you because I think BSPs are supposed to be selected without the other side actually knowing what you're taking. So if he didn't know you were taking the arrow four again, that's a little different. Because it's like he should have taken strikes, like maybe, but he also didn't know what you were taking, right?

Josh:

So on the first game, I was like, hey, is it okay? Yeah. Second game, I was like, nope, not taking it. I'm doing recon. Third game, yeah. Is that cool if I take arrow four carrier again? He's like, yeah. And I think it just was like I think he expected the tag not to hit as much as it was doing. It could be too.

Steve:

I mean, there's always a chance of you know, I don't beating the odds, as it were, right?

Josh:

Yeah, oh, I was definitely beating the odds on oh, my Spartans tagging medium range and heavy woods with the TMM. Like, come on, stop tagging me.

Steve:

But yeah, but the thing is on a Spartan, that thing's built like a brick house, so you know, trying to get the tag off that thing is a task. And if he's got a weather, you know, two 20-point thwaps a turn, that's it's a lot. Yeah.

Josh:

Now I will on the you know, devil's ad kit, it's like that is price. You're not able to bring that at scale one, you're bringing that only at scale two as your entire scale two PSP. Like you can get a lot of strikes, a lot of emplacements, a lot of other things for the price of one Aero4 carrier.

Steve:

Yeah. But you don't need line of sight, so you can keep it very protected, and they have to take out a mech that has tag. Yeah. So that's not the same as taking out yeah. I mean I understand.

Josh:

It's not great, but it's it's not like auto win. Did him?

Steve:

There's a very loud silence coming from that end of the mic. Is Josh a bad C note 1.

Josh:

All right. I guess my thought is regular artillery is a negative play experience. BSP artillery better, but then you take BSP artillery vehicle and it's somewhere in the middle of negative play artists.

Steve:

BSP artillery still hits the next turn. So you say artillery has been fired, people have a chance to move. Yeah.

Josh:

Yeah. Um in that one, yes, yes. Not not on the Aero 4 one. That one's just that turn. Yeah.

Steve:

Yeah, because the uh BSPs don't have the same rules as regular stuff either, because once you get past a certain distance, I it's short, it's like 14 or 16 hexes, then it hits on the next turn if you're taking regular arrow four.

Josh:

Yeah.

Steve:

So, you know.

Josh:

On that note, we won our contract and didn't lose anyone. Uh for this month. I think they're gonna hang out on outreach. I think they're gonna debate on whether they should split up and try to go back to scale two scale one forces rather than a single scale three, because nobody needs two chargers in a single mercenary force. We got three assault mechs. Nobody needs that. Nobody needs three assault mechs.

Steve:

That's a lot of points tied up in a couple units. Uh I mean, you do if you're gonna be playing multiple games without repairs.

Josh:

Yeah, that's true. That's true. But I always go for the high repair battle support contracts. I love that insurance payout, says the man who hasn't lost a mech yet.

Steve:

Well, you know, the first time you go for high salvage, you're gonna absolutely get good. Oh, yeah, 100%.

Josh:

Like that's how it works. Low risk, medium reward. Yeah, solar flares. We won and we're debating on what to do next.

Steve:

Rumor on the street has it that the wicked hogs are uh they've been sighted moving to a jump point near you. So they're coming. Hopefully next month we'll have a report for them. There we go.

Josh:

Denim, anything from your company?

Steve:

No, I I didn't do any um really haven't played any battle tech in December.

Josh:

Okay.

Steve:

Yeah.

Josh:

All right. Well, I think that's it for the coolant flush portion.

Steve:

And just so you know, Steve, there is a charger with tag, so I'm not wrong. I never doubted you. Because I use it. No, I just want to make sure that you knew that there was one. I believe. I believe you.

Josh:

All right, let's take a quick break, think about our sins with Aero 4, and then we'll get into our main subject on 2025 recap.

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Commerical:

Devious indeed. Indoctrinating the use of their genetic enhancements to their children.

Josh:

Alright, and we are back. Alright, boys, 2025 was a year. It was. It was a year. It's time to look back on us, on our lives, our hobbies. It's been a long time getting from there to here. Now let's look back now. Now the best part is because this is an audio format, we have contractual evidence of what we said last year and can reflect on did we achieve said goals this year?

Steve:

That's right, Steve. Did you play Gaslands? I mean, that's a big question. Everyone wants to know. Yes. Nice play Gaslands, mission accomplished. Why am I not standing aircraft carrier?

Josh:

Unfortunately, Denham, you were not here on the 2025 retrospective year, looking back at 2024. So we get to have your thoughts going forward for each thing.

Steve:

Right. I am exempt from all of this. Did I accomplish my goals? Yes. And you don't get no accountability at all. None. That's where I like to be.

Josh:

Think of this like setting your baseline at the doctor's office. So for our first one, our question was what was our favorite product release in 2024? In 2024, Steve, you said it was number Kickstarter. For me, it was Hinterlands. But for 2025, what do we think was our favorite product?

Steve:

My favorite thing in 2024 was also the mercenaries box set. So there. It's good. It was awesome. It was great. Still is great. 25 100%. It's the ACES box, and not just because my name appears in the book. Aw, nice. I need to get you to sign my book. I'll do it. But no, I I think ACES is a neat product. It has been play tested thoroughly. I can firsthand account for that. It is a great way to get people who are concerned with learning Alpha Strike. You can kind of learn on your own a little bit the mechanics for how the card AI works. AI is maybe the wrong term to use, but the uh the card-based computer system, right? It tells it how it's going to act and who it's going to shoot. Masterfully done. You know, I I think it's super cool. I think people are going to have a ton of fun with it. And the best part is that I see a lot of people painting Jade Falcons now. And that makes my heart happy. It frustrates me seeing them.

Josh:

I don't I don't know if I like it. Look, it's just too much humble for Josh too. That means you're doing it right. Denim, what about you? What's your top product of 2025?

Steve:

I mean, obviously, Aces is fantastic. I'm not gonna argue that with Steve at all. And I know that this product technically came out in 2024, but no store I knew of got it until 2025. I'm gonna go with the grinder box. I think the grinder box as a classic player, we did a lot of events with it, and it's it was a it was a fantastic product for for just an all-day event at a store. At least fantastic. So it's a product not for people to purchase, technically, it's a product for stores. True. That wasn't the question, though, right? The question was favorite product released. It's one of those, like I'll allow it.

Josh:

I just like that's it's a different idea than what we would have thought of. So I applaud you for thinking outside the box for the answer to that question. Technically correct is the best kind of thing. Technically correct, but it's the we as people are not allowed to buy the grinder box set.

Steve:

Nope, but you can play it. Come on down to the store. I will set one up. It was uh I think it was super. I know that there is a lot of uh controversy around it uh from its release and what people did with it, and and like some people sold them and they weren't supposed to, but the product itself was solid, and I think it was uh one of the best of 2025. I've been trying to get my hands on one, right? Because I mean we'd love to run them at the store. And at this point, I haven't heard anything from anyone of how I might get my hands on one for my store, so I think I'm just gonna have to build one on my own. And that really I can help you with that. All right, that'd be great. That'd be great. Josh, what about you? Uh 2025 favorite. Halo doesn't count. Let's do the battletech. I know it doesn't say in the subject that it should be what was your favorite battletech product, but let's stick with battletech.

Josh:

I'm hurt. Yeah, that's just uh I'm hurt, Lou, and I don't hurt easy. Oh, that's that's a toughie. Because I didn't actually buy a whole lot this year. I mean, this is the combo.

Steve:

It doesn't say what you bought, it just says favorite product.

Josh:

Favorite product. Is it a cop out to say I don't have one? I enjoyed the things that came out, but there was none that really stuck out as my favorite one.

Steve:

Is it a cop out? Yes, you can say it, and yes, it's a cop-out. But no, yes, that's a fair answer. I mean, especially coming off of 24 with the huge bombshells that were the Merc Kickstarter and everything else. I mean, if you do haven't played Aces yet, you wouldn't know how amazing it is.

Josh:

But I've not played Aces yet, so I don't and I I feel wrong saying that because we at least had Hinterlands and Merc when we did that the recap episode last time. Like we had those in hand, had done at least a few, like I think five at least games. Right.

Steve:

I mean, like it's I mean, it could be a force pack, but again, I mean, if it's just more plastic, it's just more plastic, right? I mean what you also I think 25 had the uh the Davian force packs. You like those? Or was that 24?

Josh:

I got those uh technically at last of an assault. So I think 25. No, 2024 was last year.

Steve:

Yeah, but it didn't come out until I did that with the grinder, like we didn't get them until 2025, therefore it was released for me in 2025.

Josh:

All the technicalities. Yeah, I had thought and I was like, there was just a lot of little plastic that I thought was really cool, but none of them were my favorite. But I guess, Steve, thank you for you know technically clarifying that for me. Like I had looked at all the iron winds, I'd looked at through all their release schedule, I'd looked at like the XTRO, you know, experimental tripods, like I looked through all that and I was like, nothing here was really my favorite. That just like I'm super happy. But if the Davian box, can someone give me a date on that? On the actual Davian box, if that came out in 2025, then I'll say that was my favorite one.

Steve:

All right. According to my in-depth Google AI overview research, it indicates that the House Davian Heavy Heavy Battle Lance uh generally listed for February 19th, 2025 release, and the cavalry lance was March 19th, 2025, although actual availability varied by retailer. So that counts.

Josh:

My retailer was pre-production sculpts on an awards table. But yeah, that was a good box. That was good.

Steve:

I enjoyed that box. Perfect. Yeah. There's your 2025 release, John.

Josh:

Yeah. All right. Our next question. 2024, we had our favorite game. Mine was against John Whitzel. Yours was your Southern Assault game with Kevin on the rooftops with your windigo and whatnot. Denim, because you didn't have, what was your favorite game of 2025?

Steve:

Yeah, see, that's not fair because as we'll talk about later, I played a lot of games, a lot of games in 2025. And for me to pick a best one, it would be a disservice to so many people. And I don't have time to talk about all my favorite moments of my favorite games. There is no possible way.

Josh:

Well, the whole podcast is just a platform to for us to talk about our favorite games. So don't worry, you get it on a bi-weekly-ish basis.

Steve:

Yeah, so there's there's I'm not gonna insult anyone by saying all of them were my favorite games because they weren't, but but I also cannot pick a single favorite, um, or even five favorites. Uh, I played a lot of games and some of them were fantastic, and you know who you are, people. You know who you are. I'm going to pretend like one of those playtest games with me was one of your favorites, and it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. You should. You should feel warm and fuzzy. Oh man. I'm also kind of in a similar boat. Uh played a lot, a lot of Battletech this year. Yeah, we did.

Josh:

Yeah.

Steve:

You know, I mean, I I've gone, well, we'll talk about it later, but I went to more tournaments this year than I think I have ever gone to in a 12-month period. I mean, playing Aaron Cahall at two different tournaments was amazing. But if I had to sit down and say, hey, this was like one game that just sticks out in my mind was relatively recent, which is probably why sticks out of my mind. My brain is like a sieve. I played a game with Martin that I talked about probably four episodes ago, where I absolutely headshot the ever living snot out of this poor man and his max, and I got like five or six headshots and just Yeah. Like, I mean, I the dice were just crazy. I kicked him to death, and it was it was a hell of a game. And Martin does not deserve that kind of hate. I don't know who he offended in the Pantheon, either in this life or a previous one, but poor Martin is subject to my wrath, and I don't even dislike the guy, so I don't know what happened, but that was one of the most memorable ones. But I mean it's so tough to sit down and look back over a year of games and say that one was my favorite. I really ought to take better notes in preparation for these types of episodes because I should listen to all the episodes for the year, think about those games we played, find out which one was my favorite. But it was a holidays. I didn't have time to do that. Look, that's just for nerds. It's hundreds of hours of research that I just don't have. That's a lot. But I think, yeah, the most memorable one was probably Headshot City with Martin, uh, or when I DFA'd Martin off a building, or when I was down to one mech and killed all of Martin's other guys with one guy remaining out of my original four. I beat up on Martin a lot this year. Martin, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Martin. Why do you keep playing with me?

Josh:

If your loved one has been brutalized by Steve, you may be entitled to monetary compensation. Absolutely not.

Steve:

Josh, what about you? What would you call your favorite?

Josh:

I had to think long and hard about this one, and I tried to push a little harder because my my first write down was, oh, when I played Jeff at Southern Assault, and I was like, No, I play so many people at Southern Assault. I can't just always pick Southern Assault as my favorite. And I was like, no, there was one game that had me like on the floor laughing, just like having a good time. That was me in a practice game against Noah Kinney before the Carolina Triangle tournament. And it was the list that I did not end up taking was like TSM Excalibur, Ryzen, like Comstar Boys versus his like Liran Merck all melee. Like he had the Neanderthal and all those. And I just remember like I did have the Raider in that one. I did I did have the Raider TSM mechan and I just remember brutalizing the melee player so bad. I hope that I talked about this earlier that time. Just it's bad when the raider is able to activate TSM and takes his awesome's legs off because his awesome wants to sit back and shoot me. And I'm like, no, no, I'm gonna do what your other melee guys want to do, which is just run up and charge you, kick you, and everything. I remember Mike Scalver just like getting one kick in on one of his backs. I can't even remember what it was, like a grasshopper or something, just like 28-point kick to the CTs. Just like everything that he wanted to do to me, I was did to him. And I'm just like cackling, having a grand time because it's like complete role reversal of what we wanted to do on the table that day. And it wasn't like a bad game, it was you know, friend versus friend, but it was just great to completely blow expectations out of the water and have a good time doing it. So it's it's fun when you can have fun and the mechs are just kind of doing their own thing. So here's to hoping I have a favorite 2026 game. I know.

Steve:

This is this just this exercise constantly reminds me I need better notes. What?

Josh:

All the show notes we take for each episode, Steve.

Steve:

I I didn't even go back and read those show notes.

Josh:

I was like You don't remember every game, like it's life and death.

Steve:

I don't remember what I had for breakfast.

Josh:

I'll be on my deathbed and like thousand games will flash through my brain, be like, dice.

Steve:

Kiel's Ofrin dies.

Josh:

Alrighty. Here's one. We talked about our most proud hobby progress in 2020. Steve, you said you wanted to start an IS faction. Me? I said painting my super griffin.

Steve:

And I wasn't here, but mine was the uh Grayson Carlisle Marauder from the Great Death Legion. That one I was super proud of.

Josh:

Was that 2024 proud? 25 proud.

Steve:

Unfortunately, it was 2024. Uh I'd I'd done that then, so that was not a this year thing.

Josh:

So what was your most proud hobby progress for 2025 in denim?

Steve:

Uh it wasn't a mech, it was it was terrain. Um, we do 3D terrain for all the maps that we do with the campaign games on, and I did some what I consider fantastic work for some of our lunar maps. Uh and I I was just super proud. We got lots of comments about it, lots of compliments uh during the campaign. And yeah, it was a whole map full of just lunar themed terrain, and I have it in a little box on my desk right now. Lunar. Is it you do these little domes that light up, right? I did not make the light up domes. That was a friend of mine named Paul. He is a magician when it comes to that stuff. Um, but it was buildings that went with that set, yes. Okay. But you showed it to me all at one time, and I'm like, oh man, yeah. So that you said lunar stuff, and I thought of those glowing. Well, it was it was the same map, yeah. And it was because and I I I've got to be honest, I stepped up my game because he did such a good job with those light up domes that I felt that the rest of the train had to be brought up a few levels to match it. It's always good when you can look at somebody else's work and be like, man, I want to do better. I want to improve my skills, I want to do that, and like you you push yourself to try new things. That's always a great feeling, especially when it pays off. I could not agree more. Josh, what about you? You said you're super griffin, like you mentioned. What about 2025?

Josh:

I I thought not as long and not as hard. And I was like, was it the Pirates? And I was like, no, it was the Nova Cats I took to Wars in Atlanta this year. Yes, I took them to Southern Assault, but I also took them to Wars in Atlanta, and they looked pretty good then. And I have to go specively with the supernova on that one with glowing orange Stargate runes, the cockpit is perfect, the laser effects are wonderful. It's everything I hope a mech looks like when I pick it up, paint it, and then put it down. Like, okay, that looks perfect no matter what.

Steve:

Yeah, that's it's always good when that happens, man. It feels good. I I like your runes, I like the glow effects on the runes, I think they look neat. And the fact that you're able to pull from so many different random ancient languages to make them all unique and different, I thought that was pretty rad. Now don't do that again. Don't don't what will cause you problems is when you run out of ancient dead languages and you can no longer add your Nova cats.

Josh:

Oh no. Yeah, I was like, if I I thought about that. I was like, I'm gonna do one AS army, and it's like maximum we're gonna have like 10 to 12 of these guys. Like, nope, nope, the whole faction's done. Put it in a box, never paint anymore. So never again, Steve. Never again.

Steve:

Speaking of Steve, do you get anything done? Yeah, so I I'm real so there are a couple things that really stand out for this year. Obviously, the first one is I'm really pleased with how I managed to get the white done on my snow ravens. It's a new faction, it's a new paint scheme. I always have a lot of problems getting paint schemes started because you do so many different, you know, uh trial and error, and that's a really frustrating part. But when you finally get a formula that works, I think it's great. So I'm really happy with the snow ravens. I'm happy with the basing. I started using UV resin for making like water and swamp effect. Yeah, I thought that turned out really cool. It did. It was nice. The one thing I wish I had done differently, I opted to do like a pack of feathers instead of individual feathers for the Alpha Galaxy. If I had a little bit more time, I think I would have been a little bit more careful. But I was like two, three days out before I had to like pack for Southern Assault, so I kind of did some V's, and I think it looks really good. There are like two, there are two mechs that look really nice, and then some others where I wasn't quite as consistent. Maybe I'll go back and fix those, but eh. Were they consummate Vs, Steve? Consummate V's. Consummate. Other really like these just hobby-related things. Uh at Brawl in the Bluegrass, I'm in to take first place in the speed painting competition. I was really pleased with that. I I don't think of myself as a terribly like I don't I don't think I'm a great painter. And yeah, I go to these events and I see everyone else's stuff and I go, holy smokes, I could never do this. You know, uh Scott Bomer brought uh from Scottsgame Room.com. Uh he brought uh you know his Novokat's uh with the the Star Galaxy stuff on them to Motor City, and I got to see his stuff, and it was amazing. It is amazing. Jeff Tweezer from uh the Coolant Pod, he brought his stuff. He ended up taking first best painted. Uh Kevin did some Koreet and guys that he they just did all these people do phenomenal job painting, and I'm always like, man, I don't think I'm ever gonna get a painting trophy. Uh and the fact that I managed to do it for the one-hour time frame for Brawl and the Bluegrass, really, I was like, hey, this is this is great. I I I didn't do bad. And that that made me feel pretty happy about that. And then finally, for the year 2025 of highlights and hobby stuff, you know, I managed to I managed to finally get my hands on an unseen Ryzen, uh, thanks to Bobby from Fortress Games. I know. I don't know why you're mad. You already have one, you already have one. And now I do, and I'm happy for you.

Josh:

I need to know that you I'm happy for you. Welcome to the Ryzen Club, the unseen Ryzen Club.

Steve:

That's the first time you've said you're happy for me, Josh. Thank you. Because I'm like, I don't know why Josh is so mad. He already has one and it's painted nicely. Because now he's not unique, Steve. But I but I can now build, I'm eventually, this is in the future pile. The Canopens come first for 26, but I do have a short list of mechs that I would like to paint for Comstar, which is gonna be a challenge because A, we're going back to white, which I did not enjoy for the Snow Ravens, but I tried to do like an ivory white for them to be kind of warm. My goal for my Comstar is going to be to do a cool white, so I'm gonna try to get you know different color techniques done with that. But now that I have a Ryzen, that's gonna fill out that list that I wanted to do uh for for Comstar. So I'm excited that I finally got my hands on one, and uh Bobby was super, super instrumental in making that happen. So, Bobby, thank you for doing that. I uh I appreciate it greatly.

Josh:

Love it all, Steve. Love it all. All right, here's the oddball one favorite novel for 2024. I said void breaker, Steve, you without question.

Steve:

Yeah, yeah. The Jade Falcon boys, they just they make my heart sing, man. G Chisto, great A character. Brian, please keep it up, and I swear to god, if you let anything bad happen to him, I will be so mad. Yeah, you disagree to man. Yeah, I I will say bad things about you because they won't be true, of course. I'll just say mean things because I'm angry. But yeah, so I love G and uh his gang of misfits just struggling out there on the hinterlands. Uh so without question was my number one for 24.

Josh:

Denim, what is your favorite novel of 2025?

Steve:

Yeah, because I I don't remember what I read in 2024. For 2025, though, I was really into short stories. If I had to pick one, it would be uh foxtales for sure. But if I could pick two, it would be the Gothic Shrapnel. I like so many stories in that particular shrapnel. They were they were good. So those are any of those, I'll have to look into it. Oh yeah. They're I enjoyed them. I enjoyed them a lot. So yeah, those are foxtales, if I have to choose one. But Gothic Shrapnel was was fantastic.

Josh:

Okay. Steve, what about you? 2025 novel. Wickets your Pulitzer Prize.

Steve:

Yeah, no, for 25 this year, I really, really pulled back on my battle tech reading. Uh, I got pulled in a couple different directions and explored some other some other artists and genres that were were new to me. But I did have the opportunity to read Jason Hans's Strength of the Pack. Uh, it's a seven-part serialized, you know, put together it's effectively a novel, but they came out in little chunks and pieces. I thought that was great. It really covers Clan Wolf in the uh clan like pre-Clan invasion, and then you hear the announcement that they're going to Terra. You get to see from different perspectives of a couple of different characters, and I I really enjoyed it. It mostly because it paints Clan Wolf in some not so nice light, which I love. Thank you, Jason. Um, but no, I overall I think it's very well written. You really get into the characters. There's some nerve-wracking moments and a couple of details that I think Jason did a really good job capturing. So I think Strength of the Pack gets my 2025 two thumbs up.

Josh:

Nice. Josh, what about you? Oh, I didn't read a whole lot. I will be the first to admit it. I'm deep in those rule books, reading them rules, so I can answer. Now time. Yeah. Someone's got to make sure the nerds are right or wrong. Uh Skulk of Foxes by Jason Hansa. I read that on the plane to Brawl in the Bluegrass, if I remember correctly, and that was quite fun. I enjoyed the sexy romp of the mercenaries when Sea Foxes. I know I'm a little late to reading that, but for me it was new.

Steve:

Yeah, I was gonna say, I think it came out in June of 24, I thought.

Josh:

Yeah. Okay, so that's pretty good for me to read a book within a year or two of it coming out. I'm not right there at the printer, Steve, just like, oh yeah, give me that knowledge. No, it's gotta You could be. It's gotta marinate for a little bit.

Steve:

Josh's gotta find out what the overall temperature reading is, find out if it's worth reading or not.

Josh:

If I remember correctly, I won Skulko Foxes at a different tournament and then read that on the way to the next tournament. So I can't just buy a book. I don't enjoy it. I didn't earn it.

Steve:

That's that's that's two Jason Hanson novels for our. Okay, fine. All right, here's here's the deal. When Brian releases the next Jade Falcon book, Jason will take a back seat. It's fine. It's fine. Give me more Falcon novels. Pull me back into Battletech fiction, more Falcon novels. So, yeah, more Falcon novels. And I do know Brian also put out the Out Fox novel this year that I got for my wife, because she is in love with the Foxtail stuff. I know we're not taking her viewpoint into this retrospective, but if we were, you know, that would that would definitely make it there. I have not read that one yet. Uh, it is on my to-do list for 2026 for sure. Fantastic.

Josh:

Same eye of that. It's on the e-reader. I will get to it. I just need to fly again. All right. Here's the speed-ish round. The favorites of 2024. This one was tactics. Mine? TFA's. Steve, Dangle, and Bait. Do we have new tactics for 2025? Denim, did you invent any tactics or use any favorite tactics this year?

Steve:

This year? I like the tactic. I don't know what it's called. I like the tactic where I sit a mech on a level behind a level one in woods and then use flankers. Make one really nice target that's super people really want to shoot, and then have flankers go in there and come around behind the other ones. So we want to call that. Steve. I think for 2025, my number one tactic, given all of the shenanigans that I've done with Martin, I think it just has to be headshots. If you shoot them in the face, they just die. I think that's a pretty solid tactic. Two more headshots. I like it.

Josh:

Just roll 12s. Just roll 12s, man. Hmm. For me, favorite tactic of 2025. I like tagging, but that's pretty recent. Yeah, I'm so good with tagging. Using ewar is fun when you can combo other things onto it.

Steve:

Alright. Again, because tag has such limited utility. When you say combo other things, you mean an semi-guided? That's about it. Semi-guided arrow, a 20-point arrow for. I've used semi-guided combo.

Josh:

The other part of my you know mercenary solar flares force is the semi-guided crusader, which you know combos with the Spartan tagging. I was like, oh, oh, the Spartan just, you know, is a force multiplier. I like this tactic of force multipliers. So force multipliers. That's the keyword of the episode, folks. Alrighty. Next one. Favorite mech for 2024. I said the Hollander. Steve, you said the Manganel.

Steve:

That big, beefy, giant, weird-looking boy. Still close to my heart, but I didn't use him much in 2025. So same for the Hollander.

Josh:

I mean, slinging heavy, heavy goss rounds. So good. Denim, favorite mech of 2025.

Steve:

Uh I played a lot of mercenaries type stuff. I actually used the Star Slayer a lot. It was fun. It was fun. It wasn't perfect, but I liked that. So I enjoyed the Star Slayer. I know it's technically a crab, but uh it's not a crab. It doesn't have the claws. Yeah, it does not have the claws, and it's got some different weapons. Uh, especially that super hot one with the um with the proved heavy lasers. Oh my god, that thing's a monster. Yeah, yeah. I had some fun with that. I did. We're gonna say that.

Josh:

Nice.

Steve:

Nice.

Josh:

Steve, what's your 2025 favorite mech? What goes home with you at night under the pillow?

Steve:

I mean, I used a lot of new mechs this year because I did play a lot of Hinterlands. Oh, yeah. It's an excuse to like paint a whole bunch of random stuff and try it out. I really enjoyed the pillager, but for what I had to say, I use the most is the Argus, man. I solid. That Argus with the Rack 5 was like, hey, this is this is a lot of fun. And because I used it mostly for Op 4 for other people, I didn't care. Although that Wolverine with mask is pretty sick, too. I think what's like the 9R, I think, if I'm recalling correctly. But yeah, yeah. Big T Big Tina from the Wicked Hogs rocks that Wolverine, and man, she's a monster in that thing. But I don't know, probably probably the Argus. Go with the Argus. It's a good mech. Yes, it's a good mech. They're all good mechs, Brond. No, they're not.

Josh:

Josh, what about you for 25? For me, I gotta go with the Templar. Getting it, getting it in November of 24, and then painting it, and then playing it so much in 2025. I wasn't a big assault mech player, but there's just something simple and nice about a Templar. Like you can go with the triple rack version, you can go through Templar 3, the extra Domini version, or you can just go large Paul Skulls Rifle, Civil War era Templar. Always nice, always good, and it looks great.

Steve:

All positive elements.

Josh:

Alright. Then we moved on to non mech. What was our favorite non mech unit? I said the infiltrator battle armor. Steve, you said. Said condor heavy hovers.

Steve:

Yeah, those things are sick.

Josh:

Denim, what's your 2025 favorite non-mech?

Steve:

I like a lot, but if we're gonna go with the one I used the most just because I used it that much, I'm gonna go with the elemental three. I just with the stealth armor with the AP Gauss, I I find them solid, solid non-mech units that can pull their weight, and then some.

Josh:

Okay, all right.

Steve:

Yeah. Battle armor never goes bad. Non elementals are great. Steve. Similar veins, something that did a lot of work for me was the Stormbirds. Stormbird battle armor. I played those a lot with the Ravens. I have used them in the past with uh with Falcons, but if I had to pick, I think I would probably take Elemental Threes over Stormbirds, but I wouldn't. I mean I wouldn't.

Josh:

Fire resistant armor, heavy flamer, advanced SRM4. Well, but again, their mobility is bad. I'm not looking for mobility.

Steve:

I used them a lot in Alpha Strike, but not in classic. If I had to go my classic MVP, probably that Von Luckner or that or that mana core. Yeah, the HPPC mana core. Really good. I use those a lot this year with the uh Hinterland stuff. Yeah, and my elementals, I'm not talking BSP elementals. I love BSPs, I do not like BSP elementals, so these are just classic. I don't know who does.

Josh:

I don't know who does. All right, for my non-Mech unit, I'm gonna go with an oddball choice, and it's the Karita Mech Warrior RPG model. This is the one I picked up at Ironwinds, like Ola Heart. The dude with the helmet? The dude with the helmet. Yeah, I love that guy. Yeah, and I painted up to look exactly like he does in the mech warrior. Nice, nice one-to-one, like it's it's perfectly recreated, and I got to use him in you know, brought him out to the summon assault as representing like, hey, this is what a mech warrior and these guys look like. So it was just cool. I get to use him in every gay battle deck, no, but he's still cool.

Steve:

I still had fun painting him. He's done. You know what I did do? I I saw your guy that you painted up like this, and I went to Hero Forge, which is that like RPG character creator. I made my own version of like a more modern like pilot because when we're doing the Hinterland stuff, if you have a pilot, if you have a pilot eject, I want to have a visual representation that the pilot A survived and the pilot is on the field. So I 3D printed much, I haven't gotten around to painting them, but when I do, they're hitting those tables, and it's gonna do double duty because I make my players for my local campaign, if they need to punch out, their pilots need to get off the map or need to get picked up by an ally because enemies can and will hunt down those pilots if they eject on the field. Yeah, they so uh I gotta get those guys painted.

Josh:

But yeah, I I love you're playing Detroit rules with your mercenary company.

Steve:

Okay, can have canf nothing to Detroit. It's yeah, we play the pilots.

Josh:

Give me a sec, I got this one. MRC MRBC board doesn't want you to know, but the mech warriors on the battlefield are free. You can just pick them up. I have 78 Sol Hama mech warriors.

Steve:

Oh man. No, but for real, it's it's fun to like do these little side projects that serve no real purpose other than just to tickle your your hobby. Yeah. You know, like it's fun to do.

Josh:

All right. Next one. New rule for 2024. Me and you, Steve, both pretty much agreed that skin of the teeth ejection was our favorite newish rule that we had never really used and then used for 2025. Yeah. Gotta pass it to Denim first. Denim, did you have a new rule for 2025?

Steve:

No, I know all the rules. I have read the book cover to cover. I I didn't have any in 2024 or 2025, any rules pop up that I'm like, I did not realize that was a rule. I'm gonna say, Oh, I've been playing this game too long.

Josh:

Okay. It's okay. Steve, do you have a new rule that you used?

Steve:

So, yes, on two counts. Oh. One, if we were to explore the new play test rules, there are a lot of really nice potential changes coming with those play test rules, right? In particular, you know, UX not jamming huge, the auto cams being able to take an extra hit, the new case rules. Some of those are super duper nice, and I got to play a lot of those. Yeah, I don't think those should count until they come out in the VM. I agree, which is why I just I want to mention them because they're there, but they're not an actual rule yet. One that came up recently is we I was at a birthday party, and after we did, oh my god, we played super tactical laser tag where you have like reload your gun and you're running everywhere. Yeah, the way to do it. I hurt that badly. I hurt so bad. It's not like going up down the stairs, not the most fun I've ever had in my life. Uh, my office body disagrees with uh physical activity on that scale. But afterwards, we went back to his house and we were playing circle of equals rules. So you just brought any mech you wanted and you plop them down and you call somebody out at the table, and you and that person are now fighting, and you fight to the death, and then if you win, you take your beat-up broken mech and you call out somebody else on the battlefield and you fight them. I had a uh hero falcon going up against a totally fresh rock shassa. I'm like, I am gonna die. So I did a DFA. And then you remembered it's a rock shassa, so you're okay. So I DFA and he shoots at me when I'm in the air, which is what you should do, and he gets internal in my center torso, hits me, and gets a critical hit on my gyro. And I'm like, oh no, that's bad. I needed to roll PSR as you do, and I rolled an 11 because you know, we're an honorable Clamourrian, we know how to pilot, you know, a hero Falcon. We pass it with the DFA jump, so we're passing the we pass the PSR, and then I go, Great, now I'm gonna land on you and I'm gonna do the DFA. And the question is the target number did the gyro hit affect the DFA target role? And the answer is no. DFAs are physical attacks, and there's a rule that states that you know uh things that only affect PSRs do not alter physical attack roles. So the gyro hit does not change the target number to DFA. I did an amazing DFA, and then I hit him in the right arm, right torso, and center torso. So I didn't hit the head at all. Yeah. And then I promptly landed on the ground, fell, hit the ground, broke my center torso because I didn't have any structure remaining in the center torso and died. But it was an amazing death worthy of the books. I gotta say, Steve, I was very proud of you because you did call me, but you didn't call me until after, just to confirm that you did it correctly. That's right. I was very proud of you. We were several beers deep, and at the time it didn't really matter. It was more about like, hey, I really want to just land on you. And he's like, the thing is, he even said, like, I don't care, don't include the gyro. And I'm like, look, now that you've said that now I gotta know. And I don't want to be that guy who, like, oh, I got a DFA kill, nice, and then have it turn out that you didn't actually because you didn't include a modifier you should have. So that was fun. That was really, really fun. So that's my new favorite rule uh that gyros don't affect DFA target numbers. So that was fun to learn. Josh, what about you?

Josh:

I went through a few things, but we all know what was my favorite rule of 2025. Love it or hate it, mainly hate it. Internal combustion engines inside of Battlemechs. The Raider. Shaking your head again on the audio only format. Oh no. Awful. Generates no heat for movement purposes. Dumb. Upon a crit hitting it, you just see if it explodes or not. Like the whole engine. That's it. That's it. If it doesn't, you keep going. Until you roll it, until it explodes. So good. So terrible. Made me fall in love with the mech. I'm like, I'd be like, cool, thank you for this wonderful life-changing experience. Please never call me again. But that was really cool because it definitely came up a bunch more than I would have expected. Where people were like, all right, cool, I've got two engine hits on you. That means you're at like what heat. And I was like, nothing, don't care. Big Bertha's still chugging along. So I would have never learned that rule if I had not been pressured to take that mech to the tournament. So thank you, patrons, for selecting my Triangle Battletech tournament list. I hate you all. Wow. Wow. Rude. Yep. Yep. Alright. Those are the speed round. Then we talked about our regrets for 2024. The first one was units you bought but haven't used. Mine, ironically, was the Spartan. Steve.

Steve:

Well, in 2024, I said most of the Kickstarter because it was like we just got it and I hadn't used most of it.

Josh:

So Denham, do you have a unit that you regret purchasing or unit that you bought but haven't really used, haven't shown any love to in 2025?

Steve:

Yeah, for sure. So I I buy all the Lance packs and I like to use them at least once, and I like to use them as a unit. I have, you know, 10K BV lists for all of them. And uh the second Star League Assault Lance is the one that I never I like. There's still the tape on the box. I never even opened it up, and I'm sad about that. It's the one with the Argus and the Helios. Yeah, like I want to. I just haven't gotten to it, and I feel bad about that. I'm sad. Understandable. Yeah. Because I like to I like to try them all out just once. At least once.

Josh:

Steve, what's your regret unit for 2025?

Steve:

That I have bought and haven't used yet. I have on my desk, and I'm looking at them right now. I have three different Loki Mark IIs. Oof. I have the one from Iron Winds, I have one that Matt from Cross Electric Designs designed, and I have the one from the legendary box set. They're all primed, they're all washed, they're waiting for edge highlights and yeah, paneling. And I that doesn't mean I couldn't have run them on the table, right? Nothing stops me, but I just haven't used them yet. And I just I've been in a weird like hobby a lot. I've got a lot of like half-started stuff on my table that I haven't been able to push through. So that's probably one that I'm like looking forward to using uh because of the model, but haven't gotten there yet. So that's mine.

Josh:

Understandable. I had to think long and hard because I've bought a lot in the last year, and it's literally the Hatamoto Chi from the uh Somerset Strikers box. Yep. I have like I was real, real happy to buy the Somerset Strikers box Silent Assault last year. Bought all that. The Wolfhound don't need like I already got Wolfhound Mauler. Eh, that's fine. Hatamoto chi. Did I even need this box at all, folks? The answer is yes. I did, yes, for sure. Like the Axemen in there really like the double LRM Axemen with an axe. Like, that's cool. I like that. That one's painted up. It's it's 80% of the way done. Hotamoto chi. I was like, I don't even play that faction. Like, come on, guys. You will now.

Steve:

It's not a creator that can bring summer sense for a year. Like strike. You know me and the lore.

Josh:

Don't get along. Yeah, yeah. All right. Regrets. Units we were disappointed with. For 2024. I said the centurion.

Steve:

Steve, you said the blade. Yeah, for Alpha Strike. I have since played the blade in classic. It's good for what it does, right? Like it's getting it done. It's one of those that didn't really make the transition to Alpha Strike well. So at the time I wasn't happy with it. Now looking back, I see that it has some benefit that I just wasn't utilizing in a different game mode.

Josh:

Denim, what is your regret unit that just disappoints you?

Steve:

I wanted the dragon fire from the Black Remnant box. I wanted that mech to work better. And I did use it. And I mean, I'm sure it was just bad dice rolls, but it went from not being able to ever hit with the LB10X to getting a cockpit crit. And I just I lost a good pilot because that was one of my mercenary games. And because of that, because I lost my my Shadowhawk pilot and I couldn't hit with the weapon I was most excited about, I was just disappointed. Will I play him again? Yes. But I have a bad feeling that I need to get over now. Um, so that was my bad guy. Sad mech is sad. Steve. This is tough because there are a lot of mechs that I love to hate. They hate to love you. No, I think this one really a lot of this comes from Southern Assault. Uh, when I did my my snow ravens, I brought a Shadowhawk 2C. And it wasn't bad. There was just nothing special about it, and it was kind of a weird spot. I often used it as my sacrifice unit to send it forward and just die. It was like a hey, I need something for people to shoot at, go forward and do it. My Shadowhawk 2C never had any crazy crits, it never did anything amazing, it never did any huge upsets. It was just there. And and that doesn't mean that it's a bad back. It just did did you say this was classic or alpha strike? Alpha Strike. This is Alpha Strike for Southern Assault. So it's like Yeah, I like the Shadowhawk 2C in Classic. I like it a lot. Haven't run Classic yet. So yeah, just for Alpha Strike, I was like, man, it's like I think it's a 4-4-0. It's not a bad profile. It just didn't do it for me.

Josh:

Not that it's bad. No, no. I looked at that one a lot for my Southern Assault list. I'm like, it looks okay on paper, but it just is okay. It's a little overpriced, in my opinion, for that what it is. And I think that's where it's like when you use a cheap unit and it does good, then it's great. If you use an expensive unit, it does okay. It's like, could I have done something better? Can I get a little bit more mileage out of that?

Steve:

And at the end of the day, it's like, you know, not everything can knock everything out of the park. Stuff's gonna get those crits, stuff's gonna hold those points. The Shadok 2C did work for me, but I mean, I think when you look at things like the White Raven and the War Crow and the Carrion Crow, even the Dark Crow to some extent, right? Like you're looking at these mechs, you're like, man, those are cool, they're unique, they're different. The Shadrock 2C is just a humanoid mech that, you know, plops around the battlefield.

Josh:

So comparing it to the Harlem Globetrotters, like, yeah.

Steve:

Right. Like, well, yeah, you could be, I don't know, I don't know sports very well, pick a good basketball player, but that's not showy, right? Like, I don't know, Chauncey Billups or something, right? Like he puts up points or when he did, I don't know, that's gonna date me. That's gonna really date me. But like, you know, Chauncey Bills did a good job for the Pistons, put up a lot of points, but you know, I mean, he wasn't, I don't know, Michael Jordan or anything like that, right? He's not doing triple flip slam dunk things, you know. So I don't know. That's my mech. And then Josh, what about you?

Josh:

I was most disappointed with the God or dammerung. It's just the Thunderbolt. It has a torso mounted cockpit. Its weapon loadout is worse than a Thunderbolt, in my opinion, where it's just four medium lasers and an LRM 15. So it's missing like the big gun. Yeah, it's missing the big gun, and that's the problem. I say that thinking, does it have a big gun? I think it does. I just it doesn't have the heat to fire both, and that's the problem. So I'm like, okay, statistically, the four medium lasers is the right answer in most of my engagement ranges. So yeah, that's like it's still unpainted. Um nope, I think I took it off. Nope. No, it's on my dead. That's how disappointed it is. Like, try not to try not to look at it even. Woof. Woof. I still want to paint it, still want to do my Lyrens up as the thick tanky boys of super hardened armor and all that, but I don't know even if 2026 will be that next year. So I'm disappointed. I'm not angry at it. Like I knew getting into it, it's exactly what it is. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Here's the wild one. Painted that you didn't like the paint. 2024. Hello? Yeah, I know I had to look it up. I said the centurion. Steve, you said the quick draw. We both wax poetic about these mechs and in those long times. That centurion for me pulled through. It wasn't great, but I I used it a lot. So it it came made up for it in other ways. Did your quick draw make up for it in other ways?

Steve:

I don't even know if I put that thing on the table this last year.

Josh:

Maybe once. Maybe once. No, it went to the naughty bed. Okay.

Steve:

It was painted, it was done, it was okay, but yeah, it's a quick draw.

Josh:

Yeah. Denim, what was your mech that you painted that you didn't like the paint? Or just don't like the mech because of that? Yeah.

Steve:

There is only one mech that I stripped in 2025 because I was so upset with it. Um, and that was the uh bull shark from the HBS game. Uh I painted that up and I pulled out my little dot brushes, and I went to go do my smoke jaguar paint scheme, and I spent a lot of time on it, and it looked so good. And then I don't know if I just didn't let the paint dry long enough or if the humidity was bad. But a couple days later, I went and sprayed the matte coat on there to take some of the shine off, and it just clouded up. It turned out from this beautiful smoke Jaguar spots to just this whitish. Gray mess. That's just all it was. I do not use rattle can matte primer. It's the only time that's ever happened. Yeah, we have a lot of humidity up here, so we won't. I don't I don't ever trust it. I won't use it. If I have to use matte coat, I'll put it through an airbrush or I will paint it on. But I will not. I was so upset. I stripped it and it's still sitting over there. Like it's been months and months, and I haven't I haven't even tried again. Oh man. Yeah. It just taunts me and looks over my shoulder.

Josh:

Steve, what's your paint that you didn't like to paint for 2025?

Steve:

Back when I was working on my false flag new faction that was a Canopens, which isn't actually a false flag. Did you false flag me with that? Like really that's exactly what because you kept asking, oh, you're working on a new secret project. What is it, Steve? What is it, Steve? What is it? Is it is it C Fox? Like, no, it's not C Fox. Oh, yeah, you're saying no, so it's probably C Fox. Like it's not C Fox. But then it said, it's Canopens, you got it. Like, yay. I was actually going to do Canopens, but that wasn't what I was working on. The secret secret was Snow Ravens. But now we are actually going to move over to Canopens. But I was doing some initial paint test schemes in the yellow. I was extremely unhappy. And that was one of the reasons why it caused me to shift from Canopens to Snow Raven.

Josh:

So paint so bad, changed whole faction.

Steve:

We're going to come back to it. I just needed a new technique because I was trying to do the classic. I'm trying to do my classic acrylic style on yellows, and that's just it's a lot of work. It's a lot of finicky, and I don't like it. So here we are.

Josh:

Alright, for me, paint that I didn't like the paint. It's gonna be the Falconer, which has had like three coats of paint on it. Because I think I tried to first do like the Commonwealth Guard for Lyrance, like brown and blue, and all that, and I didn't like that. Then I tried the brown, like camouflage, like got one of those stencils and airbrushed it, and it didn't work out right.

Steve:

And you don't you don't strip, right? You just keep layering.

Josh:

I just keep going. Well each mech's got like five or six paint jobs in its life. So I've used like three on it. And I still haven't brought the Falconer out because only in the last four months did I'm like, just run an orange base coat through your airbrush, just dilute it down, just get that base coat in. Don't worry, just do orange, just do your single base coat color and just get it over with. So I'm hoping that I can at least get it finished, but I did not like painting brown at all. The brown mechs look boring. I don't care if they have cool camo, don't have anything like that, don't care if it goes well with the scheme, it's lore accurate. No, it just doesn't look good. I don't like painting it.

Steve:

Brown is bad. Yeah, I get that, because yeah, I haven't seen your Falconer, so yeah. That's why. Pretty soon it'll like look like one of those kids with the puffy snow jacket.

Josh:

Oh that hurts. Because yeah, he well could be that. All right. Are looking forward to 2026. So in 2025, we said we were most looking forward to product-wise. Steve, you said a laminator.

Steve:

Yes! I got a laminator, I used crap out of that laminator. I went through probably 250 laminator sheets, laminating anything and everything I can get my hands on. Um and it's been great because I love it. Yeah, I have all these sheets that I can now wet erase and I don't have to worry about them. I can just mostly for my hinterland stuff, I get a mech, I laminate the sheet, I throw it in my bag. I take it, I use it, I throw it back in my bag. And then when I get to the shop, it's like, you know, oh, do I have my mercenary force? Oh, I didn't print sheets, it doesn't matter. Laminate it, here we go. So I love that thing. That was 100% with you. I got a laminator, same thing, same thing. All of that. Josh, you said you were looking forward to the Ill Clan Mercenary's Force manual.

Josh:

Did you get jokes on us? That's coming out next month. Maybe this month, possibly. Who knows? Uh I'm gonna change my answer to the Davian PDF Il Clan update. Maybe we'll get that one this year.

Steve:

Maybe. Yeah, yeah. 2025. I was looking forward to the uh the Mech Commander handbook.

Josh:

Oh, so excited about that. Still not out. I don't think it will be either. Yeah. All right. Do we want to just move on from this one? Is this one bringing up too many bad memories, folks? All right, all right. Novels. We got anything we're looking forward to novel-wise for 2020.

Steve:

Look, in my opinion, anything by Jason Hansa or Brian Young, like I will read any of that stuff as it comes out. So yeah, I if I had to pick one that has been announced that we're waiting on, I'm waiting on Long Road by Jason Hansa for 2026. Is that the Terran Falcons? Oh no, no, nope, nope. Long Road is Terran Falcons. All four of them. Yeah, just about uh but no, uh, I'm excited for it. I'm excited to see some of the characters in there. And I don't know if it's 2026, probably maybe 27 by the time it's released, but I believe that Kevin Killiani is getting some stuff coming out soon-ish, which I'm very, very excited for. You're right. I I'm also excited about that for sure.

Josh:

For me, it's Wars of Reaving. I just want proto mech novels. Are they gonna be out in 26? I hope so, man. I look I don't know. I'm still waiting on the reprint for Randall Bill's fire mandrel one from the battlecore days, because I'm like, I don't, yeah, no, that's the thing. It's like you look up, you spend an hour looking up where where's all my proto mech novels? And it's like, well, Randall did one on Battlecore, but it doesn't exist anywhere anymore. And it's like, well, fine then. Be that way. So yeah.

Steve:

A lot of those battle, I wonder if there's a rights issue. Yeah, there's a hundred percent a rights issue. It's like like all the cast regular stories, right? They're on EPUB. You can get them in like PDF, but you can't get them in print. And like, why can't they reprint these, right? And it's it's gotta be someone doesn't have the rights to something.

Josh:

I look, I would take even just like hey, here's screenshots of the pages. I just want it. I just want one protome short story. That one's like a six-story overarching thing, but what was the name of it? I don't know at this point. I got angry and deleted that browser. It's a fire mandrel one. All right, hobby-wise, we hope to improve in 2026.

Steve:

Steve, you wanted to paint more. I painted a lot last year. Um, we got all my mercenaries done in the green, I did all the BSPs, I did all my snow ravens, I did a couple more falcons. I I'm really pleased. I don't have a direct unit count, but looking at the techniques and the colors that I changed over to, you know, two new paint schemes for the year, I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. Nice.

Josh:

For me, what do I hope to improve? Enjoying the game. No. Um, I'm gonna go with that one. Enjoying the game. Some nights it's hard to get the will to get a force together that's not like 100% optimized or doesn't exactly play together. It's like, yeah, just take mech, have fun.

Steve:

Is this for 26 or for 25? Look, man, it's for every year as long as I keep doing it. Because if we're looking for what we want to work on going forward, hope to improve in 26, I gotta double back to doing that yellow on Canopens. I'm I'm I'm gonna try to tackle yellow in 26. That's my goal. If you need help, we can help you. I will absolutely refuse that sensitive advice and smash my head against the brick wall until it gives.

Josh:

Denim, what's your hobby improvement goal for 2026?

Steve:

Yeah, it's I mean, I'm gonna say painting more. Uh, I had moved last year. My airbrush still isn't unpacked. Um, I bought a whole new hobby desk. Uh, everything's finally set up. I was delayed by painting a lot. So my painting went way down in 2025, and I I want to get that back up. I've got a lot, a lot, a lot of unpainted plastic that I have great ideas for. Um, I play enough, so yeah. I play a lot of games. I would like to have more of them not grey plastic when I bring them to the table.

Josh:

That's an admirable goal that we should all have. All right. Game-wise, what do you want to try? I said everything, but I wanted an RPG. I RPG'd, folks. It was okay. I didn't love it. It was a thing. A little too clunky for my taste.

Steve:

And you used the which system to use the time of war?

Josh:

I said I wanted to use the time of war, and I did a time of war. I painted models for it, printed off the sheets for it, I DM'd it. It was not my first time DMing anything, but it felt clunky. And even though this was a worldwide event, like pre-written for relatively low experience, I still feel like it needed more experience to do it. Like it wasn't babies first, and I don't know if that was the problem. I'll try to do it again, probably try to play in something, but I don't know. Maybe a time of war. Well, as we all know, they are aware and they're coming out with something in between time of war and destiny. Something a time of destiny, as we're calling it for now.

Steve:

Something else you did in 25 that you don't have listed here because I don't think it was really discussed or even accepted at that time, but you did run your first tournament. Oh my gosh, look at me. You ran your first tournament in 2025, Josh. Welcome to the TL Club. Ugh. Don't make that noise.

Josh:

That's my certified button noise. Josh groan.

Steve:

Ugh. See, he's already failing enjoy the game resolution that he's got. Already failed. That was specific to table game.

Josh:

Dice in hand enjoyment. That's true. I did enjoy doing that. It was an experience. Yes. Steve, you said you look forward to using more special abilities and Alpha Strike. By that we mean like Narc, C3, those abilities, card abilities.

Steve:

Yeah. Kind of failed on that front. I used alternate ammo at Brawl in the Bluegrass, but Yeah, you took all tandem charges. Look, we gotta keep it simple. I said it then, I'll say it now. When I build stuff for Alpha Strike after two days of you know gaming or playing or whatever, probably heavy drinking in between. I need my list to be stupid simple. And if I go, I shoot you, I have tandem charge, I know what tandem charge does, I'm gonna roll for it. Fine. But that was it. So I got I got one keyword down. I know I have one alternate ammo for 25. All right.

Josh:

And you loved fighting that against my special ability C3 Davian list.

Steve:

Dude, my tandem charges did nothing in all of those games. Yeah. I like I brought it, but alternate ammos I still don't think are well balanced for Alpha Strike, but that's a different discussion. You will recall that I also did mention last year that I'd wanted to try more classic BSPs, which I did doing all those Hinterlands games, and I love them. I think they're great. So that I really enjoyed. So I did at least some of what I set out to do last year.

Josh:

Small increments is still progress. It's true. It's true. Denim, what are your goals for 2026? Um like game-wise, what do you want to try?

Steve:

Yeah. No, I yeah, I know. I actually uh I used to play a lot of the HBS game, but I've only ever played it vanilla, and I know that there are some fantastic mods out there for it. I I kind of want to go and try one of the better mods now that they're all established. Um, now that they've all had a lot of work done to them. I want to do a deep dive into some of the HBS really good mod things. That's what I want. I wish I could thought that that's a good answer.

Josh:

My poor computer can't handle it. That's pretty bad because it doesn't need much to run that. It's more the fan. The fan starts kicking up, and I don't like that. Too much processor power. But no, I implore you on your journey, go as far as you can. And then mod some more. All right, Steve, I missed you. What is your 2026 game-wise want to try goal?

Steve:

So now that my youngest is a little bit older, uh, he's not, I mean, he's still a rambunctious child, but uh he's a little bit more manageable and he's not an infant anymore. So my goal for 26 is to run more campaign games at our local shop. People have been very interested in our campaigns, and uh, we're having a good, I'd say 15 to 18 people show up every time I run one, which I know doesn't hold the candle to Denim's like 60 people, but I'm just not as cool as Denim. So also it takes years to get there. It does. Yeah. I also don't want 50 people coming to my campaign. I don't want that kind of pressure. I did not ask for that. It just happens. Greatness was thrust upon you. But no, I I'd like to get more of those in. People are enjoying them. The trick is between work and home and find everything else, now I'm trying to write interesting missions for people to play that follow some narrative sense. So I have the next three or four hammered out already, which is great. So I've got a good running start for January through April, because we do once a month, right? Yeah. So I'm excited to run more of those campaign games. And I, you know, it's kind of a standing thing, but I like to do Motor City better than we did last year. Not that there's anything that went wrong, just ever improving on the Elf Strike tournament kind of cutting edge, as you will, right? Yeah. So Josh, what about your you know, game-wise resolution or goal for what do I want to try in 2026?

Josh:

As I look, is Protomex an acceptable answer? No, you gotta stop. I'm also gonna paint Protomex, but no, you can't. No, you can't. It's my turn. Dad said it's my turn with the Protomex. You've had your turn. You ran them all last year. Um I don't know. I think just more games with Battletech. I think that's my what do I want to try? I want to try more games. Is that okay?

Steve:

Do I Yeah, why not? Okay if your other goal was enjoying the game in general, you should probably play more of them to do so. Or less. I don't know.

Josh:

Trying out the playtest stuff with it. Like, I I think that really reinvigorates. Like it's almost hard to go back to not like my last Merc campaign. I played a different store and they don't play any of the playtest rules there. And I was like, Oh what are y'all doing with life?

Steve:

Like, yeah, some of these don't feel good.

Josh:

Yeah, like bro, like my mech is completely different. I I've got SRM2 ammo here, like explodes badly. So I'm so happy when those come out, and those are just like how I play, because my brain will be like fresh new updated brain cells coming at you.

Steve:

On the flip side of that, there have been a couple times this year where I hit ammo and I'm like, yes, I killed that thing, and it's like, no, it only does 20 damage. I'm like, son of a pop, I thought it was dead. So that's gonna take some getting used to. It does, it does take getting like that. It's an ingrained response to an ammo explosion that uh that does not we have to change that. There are a few changes like that, and it's some of those are hard.

Josh:

And it definitely hurt because while we were planning the Southern Assault Classic tournament, those kept dropping. So there was definitely a point where we couldn't enjoy those anymore, because if we did, then our brains would be completely ruined for the rules that we were using in the tournament. So I'm excited to have like six months of just like, yeah, the playtest is done. These are still fun, like they're probably how they're going to be with some change. Like it'll be fun to like try out new mechs that work with those new rules. So there we go.

Steve:

Yep. Auto cannons become viable.

Josh:

Take hammer hands with priceless rack ammo and double jamming. Alrighty. 2026, looking forward. This is only future. Alright, looking forward. What are we looking forward to product-wise?

Steve:

Steve. I have got to say Snowblind, which is the next Aces installment. That's going to be very cool. It's going to introduce some new decks. So if you want to start customizing your own AI build for the game, you can start slotting out cards from Scouring Sands and mixing them with your snowblind cards to make an even more vicious enemy. Pretty excited about that. That's supposed to be this year soon TM, right? But I think with the success of Scouring Sands, I think we'll see that sooner than later. Denim. I alright, Snowblind sounds cool, but I really need to actually play Aces first. So I know it came out this year. I'm looking forward to playing that in 2026, but if we're looking for a specific product in 2026, I will have to say Draconis Reaches. I want more cool stuff for the mercenary box set uh expansions. And um, so you know, the last one was Hinterlands. This one is is all of your Karita versus Davian fun, and I'm down for that. Love it, love it. All right.

Josh:

Total Warfare 2. Is that is that 2026? 2028 at best.

Steve:

Like I got my fingers crossed about the BMM, let alone Total Warfare 2. I mean it it's oh you can want that all you want. I I I'd I'm gonna say 2028 at best. I don't want it to do what what Mech Commander's handbook did and just go vaporware.

Josh:

Is MAL 2.0 is that available as an age?

Steve:

It's got in 2015. Ah again, optimistic.

Josh:

I'm looking around, guys. Help me out. I ain't got nothing. All my hopes and dreams are dreams.

Steve:

And honestly, this is it's not your fault. This is one of the problems, and I think that you know, this is a light criticism of CGL is that you know they announce all this upcoming great, exciting stuff, and everyone gets real hyped for it, but it's so early in the pipeline when it gets announced that we have no idea when this stuff's actually coming. Yeah, things change, communication gets dropped, you know, it just production issues. I mean, we end up with we end up with missing dates, and then by the time it comes out, it's like, oh hey, I guess it's coming out. Oh, that that's kind of exciting. I'd almost prefer they keep more things closer than. The chest. Yeah. And then just let us know when it's ready because that way we won't get disappointed. I mean, think about all the people that were mad that ACEs got delayed and delayed and delayed and delayed. You know, that was part of the reason that so many people got mad about Gothic, was that people thought that they got bumped because of Gothic, which wasn't the case, but we had no idea what was happening. So we're like, okay, new other product, but not the product we were asking for, not the product that was you know teased to us. So, you know, I it it's hard to say I hope this comes out soon. Hey, at least when ACES came out, it was a solid, complete product. So it was, you know, yeah. It it's it looks good. Yeah, and that'll be good for the hobby as a whole. But in general, right? I mean, if you announce everything that's coming out in four years, the people are gonna kind of be bummed when it takes four, five, six years to come out. So uh it's it's hard to know what's coming out next.

Josh:

All right, so back to me. Product wise, um I got nothing then. Like I'm I'm looking forward to new rules. That's a product. I will purchase new rules when they come out. All right, did we accomplish our 2025 goals and setting new goals for 2026? How many games? I said 45. Steve, you said 26.

Steve:

Yeah, I I think we both hit those. I was conservative. I said, look, we're going to go to the game shop every other week. There are 52 weeks in a year. I want to get 26 games in. I did not anticipate events counting for that, so I blew 26 out of the water. I mean, we probably got 26 games, maybe more, because there were nights at the game shop you played two or three Hinterlands games.

Josh:

So I probably got 26 tournament games in.

Steve:

Honestly, I could count them up, but that may not be too far off. Yeah.

Josh:

I'm not gonna count mine, but I feel like I got more than 45.

Steve:

We need to have the dedicated people go back, listen to the years of episodes, and count all the games played of each.

Josh:

Yeah, no, actually, this is one thing that I do want to do. It's my goal for this, is actually track my games. Like who'd I played, did I win, did I lose? Like, sure. I I need a very simple tracker. All the ones I do are like way too involved, and it's like, no, I just need to know who did I play, when. If I want to add notes like what I took, I can do that. So I can see like your most used mech at the end of the year, like that kind of cool statistics.

Steve:

But oh, that'd be fun. Get some real data on there.

Josh:

Get real data. You know I love that data, don't you? Yeah, yeah. Denim, how many games are you getting in?

Steve:

So I play every Tuesday, play at least one game on a Tuesday. If they're hinterland games, sometimes it's two. Um, so I'll just say average, one every Tuesday. I play an average of two the second Saturday of every month. So right there, that's in the 70s, because you take six times twelve and it's it's uh seventy-two. That doesn't count event play test uh thing for my campaign. Um that doesn't count all the extra stuff, all the extra stuff I do. Um so I would say at least 80, probably closer to 100 if we count all the games up.

Josh:

You want more or less than that for 2026?

Steve:

No, geez, I think if I keep trying to keep that level going, I will get burnt out. And I do not want, I think one of my resolutions is to not get burnt out playing battle tech. Um, I need I need a little bit more variety. I need to space them out a little bit more. I need more vacations. I really enjoy battletech and I don't want to get burnt out. So I gotta pace myself better. That's what I need. What's your one like way you're gonna do that?

Josh:

I can't see you giving the campaign to someone else even for like a little bit of time, like hey, six I give the campaign to Theel um one or two months out of the year because of this past year. Yeah.

Steve:

So January, I can never do campaign games on January, but I don't want them to not happen. So Theel takes them over. And if I take a break in June or July, he will also cover me for that, which is awesome. So I I've started taking steps towards that, but uh but yeah, I don't know where. I mean, I I'm in charge of running so many demo games. Um, all the new players that come in like to play against me. I really enjoy the mercenary games. So I don't know. I'm gonna have to find someplace to cut them back a little bit. It's it's gonna be something I have to really think about. Gotta Marie Kondo this. Yeah. Yeah, because 80 to 100 is is a lot. Like it's a lot, a lot.

Josh:

Me thinking 50 was, you know, an unhealthy amount. No, no, a hundred is an unhealthy amount. Yeah. All right, Steve. So 26 games, is that still your goal?

Steve:

I think, I mean, I'm gonna say yes, because I want to play as much battle tech as I can without harming other hobbies that I have. Yeah right. So, you know, I could probably say 50, including tournament games, and I'd that that'd probably be an achievable number uh just because we are playing so many, and now we're doing campaign games too, and you know, we're really doing a lot at the shop, and then we get together with some friends. I don't you know, my buddy Carl has come over a couple times on Thursday nights for dinner, and we'll often play Battletech just the two of us as well. So those are additional games that get played. So I think 26 is is underselling it. Uh 50 is probably still easily achievable. You know, and I think that's fine. So do you think you're gonna hit 45 again this year, or you think that's low?

Josh:

So I'm keeping 45, but I'm switching how I achieve it. So I've really fell in love with scale one games. I want more smaller games. I I don't like the bigger is always better, like 12 assaults, like, yeah, let's do a big like 12k on 12k game. I did one of those, and it was honestly the most boring game I've had in like five years. Like it was terrible.

Steve:

I I like the scale one games. I think the small games are fun, they're quick, they're easy, they're objectives to complete. Bing bang boom out.

Josh:

Yeah, and me doing scale two in the uh Scots Game Room Mercenaries campaign. It's like scale two is okay, but I don't want to do scale three. Like I do one battle scale three, like one every two months, one a season almost. But no, I kind of like the idea of I'd rather get two scale one games in, like, oh, this flank is these two mechs, and this flank is these two mechs, and I can get them both done in one night. Yeah, yeah. I feel like that's a cooler concept and a more enjoyable idea of putt mechs on the table instantly in the action, one map sheet, boom, end it. Cool. So I I think it's not an amount, it's how you get there. Kind of to touch on Jenham's thing, it's like how many the quantity can be the problem, but it's how you get there. If you're spending eight hours per one game, then yeah. The quantity isn't the problem. All right, and then for 2025 goals, we had how many events? I said five events. Steve, you said four events. Denim had null events. Well, I didn't say anything because I wasn't here, yeah. Uh, denim, how many events do you want to go to this year?

Steve:

I don't know. I like KerenskyCon was fantastic, but I know that's not happening this year. If anyone ever has a chance to go there, I would highly recommend it. I'd say including Southern Assault, like two or three is probably my max, like absolute max.

Josh:

Understandable. Steve. Did you accomplish your goal and set your new goal?

Steve:

I did. So I did go to Brawl of the Bluegrass, I went to Battle of the Bay, I ran Motor City, and we did Southern Assault, and we ran the classic Southern Assault, which I feel like is a bonus. Like, yeah, we'll cut that as a bonus for me. I don't know if I will be able to do all of the things I did last year simply because you know, economic situations are changing.

Josh:

The whole world is different this year.

Steve:

Time off is changing. I mean, I my work schedule, I've had more stuff come up with trials and everything else in the last six months than I was anticipating. It all worked out, it was great, but I can probably do three is almost a given if I'm including Motor City that I'm gonna run. Yeah. So I'd say maybe like four make we're gonna see what comes up. The problem is a lot of the stuff I have to fly to.

Josh:

Yeah.

Steve:

Right? Like I can drive to brawl in the bluegrass. That's great. That's you know, a four-hour drive, I can manage that. If people want to put stuff together in like Indiana or people want to put stuff together in like, you know, Illinois, like I can make it to those. Ohio. There is normally the Glass City tournament in Ohio that I might try to make this year. Okay. But again, like when we say events, are we talking like huge tournaments or just like get togethers? Because we also do things like the Drafter for War events locally. Those are two extra, but those are more like smaller groups.

Josh:

You know, I mean that it's like you define event how you wanted to define event.

Steve:

If we're talking like full-on tournament for event, probably three this year, right? For 26. And we're counting conventions for that too. Like the whole convention is an event. Yeah, then maybe four. But uh again, right? It's about availability, time, cost, yeah, flight cost. I mean, things are you know, there are more extracurriculars I have to juggle now, right? There's some more because they're older. That's it. There's you know, scouting camp outs and everything else. So I I think I'm gonna have to dial it back a little bit this year, but I don't regret any of the events that I went to last year. I had an absolute blast. So yeah, that's for me. Josh, you think you're gonna be able to keep up your five or six tournament schedule like you did last year?

Josh:

Well, I didn't even hit five. I only was able to make it to Brawl in the Bluegrass, uh, Wars on Atlanta, the triangle tournament, and then Southern Assault. So I only made four.

Steve:

But you ran a Southern Assault Tournament too. Yeah. It's your fifth one. Boom.

Josh:

I know, I know. I was like, how are you doing? Yeah, because we technically didn't have that other triangle tournament, which I was kind of that's my safe, you know, in the pouch one, but also I didn't go up to Motor City this year. I didn't travel to Battle on the Bay and go to any like major conventions. So I failed to hit my five, but I feel like four is an acceptable, like safe number for events, like one per season, really.

Steve:

Yeah, once per quarter. Once per quarter.

Josh:

Yeah, it's like this is my main hobby. I don't go on golf trips with the guys, I go on battle tech trips with the guys. So I think four is acceptable. And always wrapping it out with Southern Assault, which is it's right here. It's it's a 90-minute drive. It's so choice. Yeah. So then the big one. How many awards are you winning? We said last year, Steve, just happy to be here. Me, I think I said four or five. We'll have to check the full transcripts.

Steve:

I think if we go back to the transcript, I think we said we wanted the podcast to get four. Okay. I think what we ultimate said, because our notes are a little bit different than what we talked about in the air, but I did say I was happy to be here. I think it's a podcast we had hoped to grab four. I'm happy to report that I got five on my own, which is great. It was awesome because I had the speed painting for Brawl and the Bluegrass. I got second place in the Alpha Strike tournament, and second place in the classic tournament. Yeah, Brawl the Bluegrass. So I got three at Brawl on the Bluegrass alone. Battle in the Bay, I got I think Best General, and then Southern Assault, I got second best general, third best overall. So that's I think that was that was great for me. I was shocked to have done that well. I do give myself a tournament organizer trophy for Motor City to make myself feel better. And it's also really good because I keep track of what trophy I made the previous year so I don't duplicate it next year. That's a good idea. I like that. Like having to scour through pictures, it's like, no, I just have one on my shelf. I also make one for my wife because she's my best wife. So she gets her own little trophy for Motor City because she allows me to put that on year after year. So it's a small price to pay for trying to keep the piece. I don't think it does a very good job, but we try anyway. But uh no, so I think five ones, five, five tournament trophies for last year was big, and I forgot we got another trophy last year in 2025. We brought the crab back trophy home. Yes, I was gonna mention that. I was gonna throw that out there, but you remember it. Good job. Six trophies for 2025, which uh I'm very, very shocked. Uh, I'm very pleased, and that has helped change my view a little bit about how trophies and things were awarded at tournaments because you know, it's not imposter syndrome is real. You people at home listen me talk about Alpha Strike, you listen to me talk about my viewpoints on this game, and I know that my value as a player is not predicated on how many trophies I bring home. I know that doesn't make me a better battle tech player, it just means that I've done well in these tournaments, but it makes me feel good that I know some of what I'm talking about when I speak these things on the air, right? It's like I know what I'm talking about at least a little bit because I have a trophy case full of things to show for it. So that makes me feel it it's validating, right? And helps do away with some of that imposter syndrome. I'm not just some idiot with a microphone. I mean, I am, but maybe not as dumb as I thought I was. There you go. Josh, what about you?

Josh:

Oh I mean I think I accomplished that. I got a lot more painting trophies than expected. Uh I got best painting at Warzone Atlanta, I got the Alpha Strike Champion one at Bluegrass, and then the painting one at the classic bluegrass, I think. Someone correct me if I'm wrong on that one. Seems like perhaps. I'm thinking.

Steve:

Yeah, I was still shocked I got second place on the book.

Josh:

I was just going on that one.

Steve:

And then I got something you had second best overall, Southern Assault.

Josh:

Yeah, second best overall at Southern Assault. So and technically the triangle one does not have any second place trophies. I was second best painted in that one with my pirate four. But if you don't have a trophy, but I don't have a trophy for it. I know, I know. Hey, that's the second year that I'd have come in second and don't have anything for it. I know because it's Ricky Bobby rules, as I like to call it. So going to four and coming home with that many trophies, I'm happy.

Steve:

Like, yeah, yeah, no, no regrets. No regrets. For 26, do you think you're gonna be able to be the same?

Josh:

Um, I don't know. The question is, do I continue on with my well, if you can't beat him at tactics, beat him at paint. Or do I try just to play stompy? And I don't I don't think that's me.

Steve:

I think I'm still an overall what sorry, says says the guy with the arrow BSP. I don't feel like I'm stompy, but I will take multiple arrow four launchers at you. I will enjoy it. I won't say no to the Arrow 4 BSP launcher. Well, no, I mean like look, it's it's painting like I mentioned earlier in the episode, right? The painting competition is really steep. Yep. And if the judges like your stuff, then you're doing something right. So keep at it, you know?

Josh:

Yeah. So I'll go. It's not about the trophies. We'll do our same little dance last year. It's not about that, but it's nice to get them. So it is. So as what do we want to do? I just want one trophy this year. That's all I want. Josh wants one to be happy. I won't be greedy.

Steve:

Love it. Just denim one thing per year. That's all I asked for. You get any awards, denim? You're gonna try for anything? Hope for anything?

Josh:

Best I mean, best lore master.

Steve:

He wins those. I won't get as many trophies as I want this year. My competitive, like like we've talked about that on the Discord before. Um I used to be super competitive. Those days are my ego is not based on trophies. I know I'm good at the game. I know I know about the game. And so I'm here to have a good time and make sure other people have a good time. So if I win anything, I want it to be the most fun person to play against. That's my goal is to make other people enjoy the game. That's it. That's that's a good goal, man. And look, the more people that have fun, the more players we have, the more players we have, the more games you get, the more games you get, the more fun we have. Yep. I don't need to win tournaments to tell me I'm good. I I am beyond that. I definitely know that. To sit up here and wax poetic on you know, mechs and tactics and how to play the game. If we're trying to fix people's mechs and fix people's games, Denim, we gotta have at least something to show for it, you know. So no. I think for myself, for 26, I'd be happy with one. Just to just to come home with something to say, you know, I'm I still got it. But I think as a podcast as a whole, I think we could probably we could probably snag three, I think, as a podcast. I think so. I'm gonna set that bar. I'll set that bar. It's a good bar. It's a good bar.

Josh:

Alright. I like saving this one close to the last. What's the unit that you want to use or paint? What's your 2026's baby mech? Think on it, think on it. Well, you're the only one who's had thought about it. Yeah, no, I know, I know.

Steve:

Who are you throwing it to as well? Oh, yeah. We're gonna throw it to Steve first. Alright. So something I'm excited to do. Uh, when we were at uh Battle for the Bay, I received a box with some 3D prints in it. One of them was an AgroTerra, and the other one was a Penicilia. That's what really was the catalyst for doing my Canopens. Uh, I am really looking forward to once I get those painted in a yellow that I find acceptable to put on the table, uh, I'm excited to see what the Agroterra and the Penicilia do. And it's funny because those are the same two mechs that Thiel did at the classic tournament that did really well. So I'm optimistic. I had already planned on using them and I was looking forward to using them. Uh, but knowing that, you know, I'm not saying that Theel's not a good player, but knowing that he at least had the sense to take these two mechs and make them the the basis for his his winning army is kind of you know, like, ooh, maybe there's something to be done here. So I think the penicilia and the egro terra are the two for me that I'm looking forward the most to using. Very nice. I was happy enough to acquire two Triskelions uh last year. I have not used them yet, either of them. So that's my goal in 2026 is to put those suckers on the table and do some damage with them. That third leg. It's all about that third leg. Well, I mean, I've got that uh the Poseidon that I've used several times before. Uh but it's a slow boy, and I'd like some I'd like some lighter tripods to try out. See how that works out.

Josh:

It's a good one. I I I highly recommend the Triskelion train. And for me, uh unit that I want to use and or paint. I feel like this is my Capellan year. As I look at my Vandal Prime. I mean, large VSP and a Rack Vive and a torso matter cockpit. Maybe, maybe if you combine all three, it makes a mech I enjoy. Well, we'll find out.

Steve:

I can't get that guy to overheat a little bit.

Josh:

The pilot slowly cooking like a peeking duck on the inside.

Steve:

It's smiling at me.

Josh:

Yeah. But no, I bought that and haven't used that. So I figured that'll be a good one to crack out of the plastic, glue my fingers together as I summon them enjoy the torso mountedness. Nice. So I'm that's my unit I want to use in paint for 2026. Sweet. Alright. Then our last one, free space. Any goal. Any golf can be anything if we want it. Doesn't have to be. Just go out there if you need it. For me, I don't have any free spaces. It's just enjoy Battletech. Like I said, play a lot more scale one, have fun at scale one. Have more quick fun games is my overall goal. Yeah, it's a good goal.

Steve:

I think my goal is to design a mission where I can use the um the 3D printed uh HPG station, the BFG. Because I've I got all that from from from Thunderhead and I've printed it out and we're painting it up, and I want to do something fun on that map, fully painted with all of the Thunderhead stuff. And I think it's gonna be it's it's gonna be really cool. That's what I want.

Josh:

Whatever you do with it, you gotta use the actual HPG rules where it does the EMP effect and shuts everyone down, and everyone's gonna furiously roll in like 10 turns until if someone actually activates and it's like, ha, you got a turn while everyone's still asleep. What do you do?

Steve:

Unless it's a Tucker Harwell situation where they're just trying to get to this defunct HPG so that they can reactivate it. I'll figure something out. Yeah, that'd be a good idea. I will figure something out. Yeah. I think for me, if we had to do free space, general goals, I'd like to get more people into the hobby. Uh locally we have a really strong group, but we pull from the entire Metro Detroit area. And Metro Detroit is one of the largest metro areas of any city in the United States.

Josh:

Yeah.

Steve:

Uh it's absolutely enormous and covers a huge area. We've got a lot of different game shops. I don't want to say I want to break up the local group and then send them out to these other stores to kind of start smaller, smaller groups, but you kind of have to.

Josh:

You gotta send your pilgrims, you know, apostates out.

Steve:

Yeah, I just gotta like, all right, we gotta grow the hobby, make it bigger. I want I want to have Detroit be a battle tech hub uh if we can do it, right? So it's you know, I want people to like, oh yeah, we're going to Detroit, we'll find somebody to play with, and that that'd be a nice goal. I don't think that's achievable in one year, but I'm gonna put steps towards that, I think, for 2026. 2026.

Josh:

We're moving Detroit out of the periphery back into the inner sphere.

Steve:

I technically, as of 3152, I believe it's part of the Capellan Confederation. Yeah, for distance purposes.

Josh:

It's periphery.

Steve:

As long as you keep at it, even when things are slow, then it will just naturally get bigger and bigger and bigger. But it's consistency. We'll see how Motor City does. We'll see how Motor City does this year. I think I'm gonna have to change the venue if we get a real strong response, which is terrible.

Josh:

Suffering from success again.

Steve:

Dude, I know, I know. It costs so much to rent these halls, it's awful. Yeah. But yeah, because the halls know where else are you gonna go. Yeah, right. I can't fit 50 people in my basement.

Josh:

All right. Well, that's a great look at our 2025 goals that we succeeded and failed. Some hit and miss. I'll take for 2025 as a year. I'll take anything I can get at this point. And someone scribbled in the footnotes here announced 2026 project.

Steve:

Who might that be? Oh yeah. This is I'm very excited to make this announcement. So we're not a time. No, it in 2025, we were looking for something. You know, it's always fun when you play people to give them a token of your game. So we've been giving out dice, uh, you know, mech bay dice year over year, and that's great. But at some point, people have too many dice. I know, I know, heresy. But we want to do something special. So for the year of 2026 going forward, we're gonna announce that we have made custom poker chips for each of the mech bay hosts. They have a fun little saying on them, they've got our name on them, and you can play Josh and get your blue one, Denim and get your red one, and of course you can play me and get your green one. And should you be able to collect all three, you are eligible to receive the penal, I guess the ultimate black chip that effectively represents that you have managed to play all three hosts of the Mech Bay podcast. So the next time you see someone at the table, you should be able to receive one of those from us if you play us starting in 2026, which is very exciting. So you guys should be getting your boxes in the mail, hopefully within the week, but with your with your chips. So I I am so excited about this. They look so sharp. You you like I know this was your idea, and it's fantastic. I I really love this idea so much.

Josh:

Now, is there like a Pokemon gym level like Josh has to pick his list for 2026, and that's the only list he uses, and if you can beat that, then you're good.

Steve:

Or is it I don't even think you should have to beat us, you just have to play us at the table, a 1v1 game. So, you know, like if you're at my table for the campaign game, that doesn't count. You've got to have a game against beat. Yeah, if it was you have to beat us, I think that would be too. No one's going home with badges.

Josh:

I only bought three.

Steve:

Some people only see us at certain events, like uh and things, and if they also have to win, like we're not bad players, is the problem.

Josh:

I'm not gonna throw a game just so you can it's it's just have to play us, have to sit down and roll dice against us.

Steve:

And we've all got black chips, so you should be able to show your three colors to any one of us, and we can get you don't have to exchange them, you get to keep all four color. Correct, correct. You get to keep them all. I'm I'm pretty excited. Do we want to tell the listeners at home what our fun settings are? No, no, no. That needs to be a surprise. All right, all right. You guys can figure it out when you earn them by playing us. So look for us at events, look for us, come visit our hometowns. I think what's gonna be the biggest hurdle for most is people locally here are gonna end up with a lot of green chips, people down there are gonna end up with a red and blue. Grabbing that last one, right? People are gonna that's what separates the new. I think it's fun, and I don't see these going anywhere. It's not like you can only get them for the next 12 months. It's just a new project for 206 and it's a 2026 only project. It's a project that started in 2022. Should be a lot of fun.