NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
edited October 2021
I actually had an old, beat-up nylon (I think?) scrub brush that broke off at the head. I just tested a bristle with a model and primer, and it seems to have taken well to the test. The bristles are a little bit twisty-shaped instead of straight, so that gives me another option.
Also @McGibs, I see what you said about IWM's sculpts over in the MechWarrior thread, and them's borderline fightin' words my friend!
Yes, they have a lot of goofy and questionable old sculpts. But a lot of their more modern stuff is really good! But we've beat that horse enough, I suppose.
Nips on
0
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Bad news, everyone! The Force Packs basically sold out overnight! It looks like as of this moment (10 AM CDT Saturday) that the only things left are Urbie Salvage Boxes, Legendary Salvage Boxes, and the Elemental Force Box.
Good news, everyone! The Force Packs are listed with "Restocks expected 11/15/2021 and 12/1/2021", so CGL did their best to plan around selling through immediately! Logistics is hard.
And all the other non-miniatures stuff was listed up there as well. I guess. If you're into any of that.
I'm still waiting for the Australian distributor to get their shit together and post my order. They've had the physical products for 2-3 months now.
How much did you go for, Cobalt? I'm curious, because from the stories I'm seeing at the official forums it completely-unofficially-and-totally-anecdotally looks like Aetherworks might be working from small orders to large. That's on top of stories that paint Aetherworks and AusPost as....maybe not the greatest, on either side of that equation.
Regardless, I feel for you. The waiting sucks. Did you at least get your notification that the order is being processed?
I don't have a big order, the main box and a couple of lance packs. As far as I can tell my order hasn't even been processed yet; they're still in the process of packing boxes.
Glad that I'm not going to be the only one with an Urbie plushie.
I remember seeing everybody's posts of their dropships and thinking that my backing the plushie Urbie might be the reason they messed up on the cards and other stuff since they spent so much time on the plushie.
IanatorGaze upon my works, ye mightyand facepalm.Registered Userregular
Does anyone have images featuring a Mobile HPG? Gamemaster just dropped that securing such a device is our next objective and I want to model a vehicle (or land train wagon) in time for our host to print one on Saturday.
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0
H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
edited November 2021
Do they mean the 50 ton model seen on large spacecraft (mainly jumpships & warships), or the 12 ton ground vehicle model? While both were developed during the Star League, the latter were pretty late in the era (~2750) and seem to be fairly rare. Only the Clans, Comstar, and WoB have either tech in the 31st century, and will heavily protect them.
The only official ground vehicle I found quickly is a Jihad-era WoB exclusive variant of the https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Morningstar, but note that the art is for the model without an HPG. As for 'mechs, there's a variant of the https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Septicemia_(Pariah) which is a Wars of Reaving-era Society omnimech. Although the Septicemia was adopted by the surviving four homeworld clans, it's questionable whether they would have a use for the Z alternate config. Also, there doesn't seem to be any official images of that variant.
IanatorGaze upon my works, ye mightyand facepalm.Registered Userregular
Reading the GM's post, sounds like it's a 12-tonner. We're currently early 3050s (Tukayyid just hit the headlines) so it's probably a Clan unit of some sort.
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0
H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
edited November 2021
Well, the tech definitely exists in the lore, and there are game rules for mounting them. But I couldn't recall anything that carried one, and can't seem to find anything else besides the two units I linked via Sarna. I'm not really up to paging through the MUL listings, but if you'd like to try, the minimum rules level for the tech is Advanced, which would narrow your filtered results a fair bit.
I think you might be shit out of luck for finding official art for one, so 3D Printer models are probably also scarce.
Late edit: if you do end up having to homebrew something, just make sure it's got a bigger satellite dish than the https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Swift_Wind
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
I did a search of the MUL using the Alpha Strike HPG unit ability, and the only units to come up were literally the two H3Knuckles found.
Knocking something together shouldn't be too complicated: just take some vehicle chassis that's pretty chunky and second-line (something like this from the Star League is almost certainly not intended to be near front lines), and then add transmission elements to the top of it. I'd start with something like the chassis of the Long Tom carrier or Coolant Truck, if you don't just want to use the Morningstar model that exists.
The thing about dish antennas is that they're sized for the electromagnetic frequency of operation, not power level. So while we mostly conceive of HPG antennas as these giant building-mounted structures, its important to realize that the ground-mobile HPG is only two tons less, and two crit slots bigger, than an AC/20. Using common communications frequencies (and especially if we're considering super high-frequency space tech), you can get away with relatively small parabolic dish antennas.
+1
H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
edited November 2021
It's weird that there hasn't been anything official for that yet, because there were active factions with the technology in your target time period, so there should be specs for something in service around then that mounts it.
Mostly I'm just surprised that they created lore for the 12 ton model being invented in the Star League and didn't think to gin up the first SLDF vehicle to feature it. If neither the Clans nor Comstar saw a point to replacing the original until the Jihad/Reaving eras, that wouldn't exactly come as a surprise given how niche its role is. But in-universe you'd think the Comguard would've at least kept the original in service, and from a real world standpoint it seems like an obvious oversight.
Hmm, I suspect that neither Comstar nor the Clans really had much use for the ground mobile version, hence why you didn’t really see them all that often.
Comstar had their fixed locations, which were easily protected by interdictions. A mobile version where a House could fake its destruction to capture it would be disastrous. I bet they had them, they just never used them and pretended they didn’t exist.
Clans didn’t really have room for them in their doctrine. They had the fixed positions at home, Comstar in the IS, and Warships which likely had at least one of the ship sized ones per Point. They didn’t really engage in the type of warfare where having a clandestine HPG planetside was useful.
TLDR version: Comstar didn’t want to give the Houses a chance to break the HPG monopoly and the Clans didn’t have a place for it in their doctrine.
Nobody on
0
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
It's weird that there hasn't been anything official for that yet, because there were active factions with the technology in your target time period, so there should be specs for something in service around then that mounts it.
Mostly I'm just surprised that they created lore for the 12 ton model being invented in the Star League and didn't think to gin up the first SLDF vehicle to feature it. If neither the Clans nor Comstar saw a point to replacing the original until the Jihad/Reaving eras, that wouldn't exactly come as a surprise given how niche its role is. But in-universe you'd think the Comguard would've at least kept the original in service, and from a real world standpoint it seems like an obvious oversight.
I think this is one of those things, like the existence of IndustyMechs, where the concept was probably considered low-priority to canonizing a particular model. If I'm reading Sarna right, the mobile HPG itself isn't canonized until Tactical Operations came out, which was only 2008. There were certainly opportunities to try and fit something in: between 2008 and now, there were TRO releases where they could have put something in like an SLDF-throwback mobile headquarters with a light HPG. In my mind, thinking about it more, it's almost certainly just an oversight.
On the plus side that means to me, as with IndustryMechs held over from the Star League, the concept of the mobile HQ+HPG was so commoditized and ubiquitous that just about any simple vehicle you come up with is probably correct. So bash away, friends!
I did a search of the MUL using the Alpha Strike HPG unit ability, and the only units to come up were literally the two H3Knuckles found.
Knocking something together shouldn't be too complicated: just take some vehicle chassis that's pretty chunky and second-line (something like this from the Star League is almost certainly not intended to be near front lines), and then add transmission elements to the top of it. I'd start with something like the chassis of the Long Tom carrier or Coolant Truck, if you don't just want to use the Morningstar model that exists.
The thing about dish antennas is that they're sized for the electromagnetic frequency of operation, not power level. So while we mostly conceive of HPG antennas as these giant building-mounted structures, its important to realize that the ground-mobile HPG is only two tons less, and two crit slots bigger, than an AC/20. Using common communications frequencies (and especially if we're considering super high-frequency space tech), you can get away with relatively small parabolic dish antennas.
Dish size determines the distance you can receive a signal at and the strength of signals you can receive. A larger dish has more photon gathering area, so for a signal of given power a larger dish will be able to reliably receive that signal from farther away than a smaller dish. And at the same distance, a larger dish will be able to pick up lower power signals than a smaller dish.
But given that HPGs are FTL tech, not sure they would really have the same concerns about transmission distance/power that would require different sized dishes for the actual EM signal. As opposed to whatever technobabble hardware needs they might have for the hyperspace opening.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
0
IanatorGaze upon my works, ye mightyand facepalm.Registered Userregular
Update from my GM:
Well, since you insist, the design is similar to a mobile HQ, just at 40 tons, not the 25 of an HQ unit. Sort of a super sized HQ...
Plushy Urbie arrived, little one immediately wanted to play with it, but also understands it’s “mine”
At least, for now
+5
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
edited November 2021
MW5
So I got some more play time in last night, and I happened across a Black Knight in a store. Being as my only over-65-ton 'Mech was still a Charger, I bought the Knight despite kinda being leery of the all-energy loadout, and never having played one in MWO.
1. Refit with Dual PPCs and six SL-SB, and as many heat sinks as I can fit? Fucking hell. It's got punch at range, and then it's got knives for days. And then two fists for punching! I'm legitimately enjoying this package waaaaay more than I expected I would.
2. HOLY SHIT THIS 'MECH IS SO FUCKING TALL. It's like a clear 15% taller than the Charger standing next to it in the pre-mission loading bay. How the hell does this thing get in and out of the Leopard bay doors?!?!?!?
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Ah hah hah, that's what I get for just opening my browser and assuming "people talking about Battletech" is the correct tab. *slaps forehead*
Back on topic: You guys are absolutely no help with figuring out this Stormcrow situation. I think I'm stuck with one of two options, neither of which I'm a huge fan of:
1. Figure out what Star this thing is going in, and build it to fit the larger Star's strategy.
2. Magnetize the arms to make them swappable. (Ugh) I can do it, but working on this Quickdraw 8P and a previous Jenner IIc sculpt I've worked on, my opinion of magnetizing Battletech figures is largely "Why am I doing this?".
I picked up the $20 Babby's First Battletech box on a whim (mostly I wanted to paint a couple of big stompy robots, my entire experience with the franchise so far has been Mechwarrior 2 on the Sega Saturn and Mechassault on the Xbox, no actual Battletech tabletop stuff). Coming from a Warhammer/Adeptus Titanicus background, the 'getting started' rules seemed fairly straightforward - hits are rolled on 2D6, everyone is BS4, your movement and your opponent's movement generates negatives to hit, there are no armor saves, mechs have hull points distributed over separate portions of their bodies, everything is hex based, different levels of terrain require additional movement to get through and can confer an additional negative modifier to hit. Ok.
How simple is this ruleset compared to the "full" ruleset? I understand that in the normal game heat plays a factor, but that's all I know.
Also, when I do paint them, if I want to play with them later, how important is coloration and lore correlation with the various houses? Is it closer to, for example, Space Marines in 40K (where you can paint them whatever color you please and just say it's a successor chapter), or Space Marines in the Horus Heresy (where you're restricted to specific options and are expected to paint your army as it is officially depicted)?
+2
IanatorGaze upon my works, ye mightyand facepalm.Registered Userregular
edited November 2021
Aside from heat, the big change between the starter and "full" rules is the structure diagram and critical hits chart. When a body section runs out of armor, excess damage goes to the structure and you roll for a chance to break something in that section. That "something" can be a weapon (which stops functioning) or arm actuator (weapons are less accurate, physical attacks are weaker) or leg actuator (slows movement and makes piloting rolls harder) or the engine (starts dumping heat into the mech) or an ammo bin (popcorn, anyone?) or the cockpit (burgers, anyone?).
As for color schemes, there's a bunch of House regiments whose color schemes don't line up with their faction's primary identifying color. For example, House Davion is typically identified by golden yellow but the Davion Brigade of Guards livery is dominated by blue with a red-and-white stripe going down one side.
Ianator on
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+2
H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
edited November 2021
Does the 'getting started' rules cover melee attacks like punching, kicking, Death From Above (goomba-stomping if your mech has jump jets), & pushing? Also, pilot skill checks (mostly resisting falls after having too much shot off your mech, or when you experience a large elevation drop between two hexes)? Ammo explosions? If yes to all of the above, then typical play only really adds what Ianator mentioned.
Vehicle, infantry, and artillery rules are popular, along with the various kinds of electronics warfare and advanced information sharing tools (like spotting lasers & tactical networks) mechs can mount. But these are only relevant if you are using those specific units or scenario conditions.
People like to paint their minis as factions, but it's not like either version of Warhammer in my experience. Battletech doesn't really have army books in the same sense, pretty much every faction can and will field salvaged units produced by other nations. So things are generally more relaxed (like, don't feel like you need to field matching minis). As far as using canon schemes versus homebrew; individual commands within each faction often have their own livery, and there's implicitly an endless sea of mercenary outfits out there, so feel free to cook up your own ideas if you like (these forums have a homebrew merc outfit called the Oosik Irregulars that was created as a guild for Mechwarrior Online and ended up getting canonized in an official sourcebook). If you do want to stick to specific team builds, just try to keep them consistent in terms of techbase and era (Battletech had a timeline that kept progressing, with new gear options and chassis being added over time).
If you want to peruse 'official' color schemes, Camo Specs is a great resource. It's not made by the studio that currently handles the game, but it draws on official references where possible, and is trying to keep things consistent. There's also the Unit Color Compendium, which has a big (>300 MB) downloadable pdf you can download under "Resources" and "Links to Battletech Resources".
I picked up the $20 Babby's First Battletech box on a whim (mostly I wanted to paint a couple of big stompy robots, my entire experience with the franchise so far has been Mechwarrior 2 on the Sega Saturn and Mechassault on the Xbox, no actual Battletech tabletop stuff). Coming from a Warhammer/Adeptus Titanicus background, the 'getting started' rules seemed fairly straightforward - hits are rolled on 2D6, everyone is BS4, your movement and your opponent's movement generates negatives to hit, there are no armor saves, mechs have hull points distributed over separate portions of their bodies, everything is hex based, different levels of terrain require additional movement to get through and can confer an additional negative modifier to hit. Ok.
How simple is this ruleset compared to the "full" ruleset? I understand that in the normal game heat plays a factor, but that's all I know.
Also, when I do paint them, if I want to play with them later, how important is coloration and lore correlation with the various houses? Is it closer to, for example, Space Marines in 40K (where you can paint them whatever color you please and just say it's a successor chapter), or Space Marines in the Horus Heresy (where you're restricted to specific options and are expected to paint your army as it is officially depicted)?
While the "full" Classic Battletech rules would technically be several hundred pages over multiple books, the "core" rules are in the TotalWarfare book, but 99% of that can essentially be boiled down to a small set of lookup tables https://www.sarna.net/wiki/CBT_Tables The other books are for things like advanced tech weapons, construction rules if you want to make your own custom builds, and campaign rules for long term multi-session games. Though for custom builds, I'd just use Solaris Skunk Werks https://github.com/Solaris-Skunk-Werks/solarisskunkwerks/releases vs messing with the book. It will also let you print out any canon mech variant record sheet or save/print your custom loadout sheets.
As has been said, paint your minis however you like. I don't know anyone that would give you grief if a paint scheme doesn't match, even between mechs in the same lance, even if you say you are part of a canon unit.
Also, Battletech is not WYSIWYG. Don't worry about needing to alter your minis, though certainly feel free to if you'd like, if you feel like playing mech variant B today instead of variant A or even your own custom loadout. As long as the record sheet is valid, you're good. You could play with completely different chassis minis or cardboard cutouts as stand-ins if you wish.
There's also some digital tools that may be of help, such as https://flechs.net/ which is an electronic record sheet system for tracking play if you don't want to use or don't have physical record sheets but also allows for auto dice rolls, auto damage application, and a sort of multiplayer. I also like the "BT Dice Roller" app for my phone. If you either don't like rolling dice or dealing with the many rolls and table lookups needed for things like missile cluster hits, this will quickly do that for you. It also has all the CBT reference tables from above and a few others built in to look at if you wish.
And if you'd prefer a faster paced, simpler version of BT that's really designed for larger mini counts beyond the normal 4 on 4 mech lance sizes you can look into AlphaStrike rules as well. Here's the starter rules: https://bg.battletech.com/wp-content/uploads/Alpha Strike Quick Start Rules 2019-08.pdf It's hexless, damage and heat mechanics are greatly simplified so the recordsheets are simplified down to the size of playing cards and you can print off the card to play with for any unit you desire from http://masterunitlist.info/Unit/Filter
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
+4
H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
edited November 2021
There's also Mega Mek Lab, which like Solaris Skunk Works is a fan-made app for building your own custom units & printing record sheets for them. Both have had downloadable indexes of all canon units put together, so you can use them to make any record sheet you need for the game. MML has built-in support for other kinds of units (pretty much everything but protomechs and warships, under File>Switch Unit Type) unlike SSW (which had a spin-off for ground vehicles and helicopters, but I don't know if they are supporting it anymore). Mega Mek itself is a java app for playing the tabletop game against PC or other people (like a precursor to Tabletop Simulator). Both MML and SSW can export files for use in Mega Mek, so it really comes down your preference on which to use.
If you aren't already familiar with it, Sarna.net is the best wiki for Battletech. It has stats for canon units, fairly exhaustive coverage of lore, collections of official art, detailed maps, game rules for advanced equipment, real world information for products released for the IP, all sorts of stuff. Sarna has a moratorium on posting material from the latest releases, but pretty much everything ends up there eventually.
Still haven't received my wave 2 shipment. Aetherworks are still using the "covid-19 compliance" excuse which is bullshit because there aren't currently any covid-19 restrictions that would affect their work in Sydney and haven't been for at least a month now. They've restricted commenting on their Facebook posts because they just get a bunch of angry faces when they post something.
At this point I'd probably get things quicker if I bought packs directly from CGL whenever they went up on their site.
Posts
Also @McGibs, I see what you said about IWM's sculpts over in the MechWarrior thread, and them's borderline fightin' words my friend!
Yes, they have a lot of goofy and questionable old sculpts. But a lot of their more modern stuff is really good! But we've beat that horse enough, I suppose.
Bad news, everyone! The Force Packs basically sold out overnight! It looks like as of this moment (10 AM CDT Saturday) that the only things left are Urbie Salvage Boxes, Legendary Salvage Boxes, and the Elemental Force Box.
Good news, everyone! The Force Packs are listed with "Restocks expected 11/15/2021 and 12/1/2021", so CGL did their best to plan around selling through immediately! Logistics is hard.
And all the other non-miniatures stuff was listed up there as well. I guess. If you're into any of that.
Time will tell if my little one claims it
Congrats. That is a great way to start them down the path of the MechWarrior.
Steam: betsuni7
How much did you go for, Cobalt? I'm curious, because from the stories I'm seeing at the official forums it completely-unofficially-and-totally-anecdotally looks like Aetherworks might be working from small orders to large. That's on top of stories that paint Aetherworks and AusPost as....maybe not the greatest, on either side of that equation.
Regardless, I feel for you. The waiting sucks. Did you at least get your notification that the order is being processed?
This inspired me to also buy one for my little nephew. It must be.
I remember seeing everybody's posts of their dropships and thinking that my backing the plushie Urbie might be the reason they messed up on the cards and other stuff since they spent so much time on the plushie.
Steam: betsuni7
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The only official ground vehicle I found quickly is a Jihad-era WoB exclusive variant of the https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Morningstar, but note that the art is for the model without an HPG. As for 'mechs, there's a variant of the https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Septicemia_(Pariah) which is a Wars of Reaving-era Society omnimech. Although the Septicemia was adopted by the surviving four homeworld clans, it's questionable whether they would have a use for the Z alternate config. Also, there doesn't seem to be any official images of that variant.
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I think you might be shit out of luck for finding official art for one, so 3D Printer models are probably also scarce.
Late edit: if you do end up having to homebrew something, just make sure it's got a bigger satellite dish than the https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Swift_Wind
Knocking something together shouldn't be too complicated: just take some vehicle chassis that's pretty chunky and second-line (something like this from the Star League is almost certainly not intended to be near front lines), and then add transmission elements to the top of it. I'd start with something like the chassis of the Long Tom carrier or Coolant Truck, if you don't just want to use the Morningstar model that exists.
The thing about dish antennas is that they're sized for the electromagnetic frequency of operation, not power level. So while we mostly conceive of HPG antennas as these giant building-mounted structures, its important to realize that the ground-mobile HPG is only two tons less, and two crit slots bigger, than an AC/20. Using common communications frequencies (and especially if we're considering super high-frequency space tech), you can get away with relatively small parabolic dish antennas.
Mostly I'm just surprised that they created lore for the 12 ton model being invented in the Star League and didn't think to gin up the first SLDF vehicle to feature it. If neither the Clans nor Comstar saw a point to replacing the original until the Jihad/Reaving eras, that wouldn't exactly come as a surprise given how niche its role is. But in-universe you'd think the Comguard would've at least kept the original in service, and from a real world standpoint it seems like an obvious oversight.
Comstar had their fixed locations, which were easily protected by interdictions. A mobile version where a House could fake its destruction to capture it would be disastrous. I bet they had them, they just never used them and pretended they didn’t exist.
Clans didn’t really have room for them in their doctrine. They had the fixed positions at home, Comstar in the IS, and Warships which likely had at least one of the ship sized ones per Point. They didn’t really engage in the type of warfare where having a clandestine HPG planetside was useful.
TLDR version: Comstar didn’t want to give the Houses a chance to break the HPG monopoly and the Clans didn’t have a place for it in their doctrine.
I think this is one of those things, like the existence of IndustyMechs, where the concept was probably considered low-priority to canonizing a particular model. If I'm reading Sarna right, the mobile HPG itself isn't canonized until Tactical Operations came out, which was only 2008. There were certainly opportunities to try and fit something in: between 2008 and now, there were TRO releases where they could have put something in like an SLDF-throwback mobile headquarters with a light HPG. In my mind, thinking about it more, it's almost certainly just an oversight.
On the plus side that means to me, as with IndustryMechs held over from the Star League, the concept of the mobile HQ+HPG was so commoditized and ubiquitous that just about any simple vehicle you come up with is probably correct. So bash away, friends!
Dish size determines the distance you can receive a signal at and the strength of signals you can receive. A larger dish has more photon gathering area, so for a signal of given power a larger dish will be able to reliably receive that signal from farther away than a smaller dish. And at the same distance, a larger dish will be able to pick up lower power signals than a smaller dish.
But given that HPGs are FTL tech, not sure they would really have the same concerns about transmission distance/power that would require different sized dishes for the actual EM signal. As opposed to whatever technobabble hardware needs they might have for the hyperspace opening.
Guess I got my reference.
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Beep beep!
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Stormcrow -B or -TC?
Which one is it where you replace the legs with additional guns and get carried into battle by your buddy's assault mech?
One arm, one cannon.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Steam: betsuni7
At least, for now
So I got some more play time in last night, and I happened across a Black Knight in a store. Being as my only over-65-ton 'Mech was still a Charger, I bought the Knight despite kinda being leery of the all-energy loadout, and never having played one in MWO.
1. Refit with Dual PPCs and six SL-SB, and as many heat sinks as I can fit? Fucking hell. It's got punch at range, and then it's got knives for days. And then two fists for punching! I'm legitimately enjoying this package waaaaay more than I expected I would.
2. HOLY SHIT THIS 'MECH IS SO FUCKING TALL. It's like a clear 15% taller than the Charger standing next to it in the pre-mission loading bay. How the hell does this thing get in and out of the Leopard bay doors?!?!?!?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Back on topic: You guys are absolutely no help with figuring out this Stormcrow situation. I think I'm stuck with one of two options, neither of which I'm a huge fan of:
1. Figure out what Star this thing is going in, and build it to fit the larger Star's strategy.
2. Magnetize the arms to make them swappable. (Ugh) I can do it, but working on this Quickdraw 8P and a previous Jenner IIc sculpt I've worked on, my opinion of magnetizing Battletech figures is largely "Why am I doing this?".
How simple is this ruleset compared to the "full" ruleset? I understand that in the normal game heat plays a factor, but that's all I know.
Also, when I do paint them, if I want to play with them later, how important is coloration and lore correlation with the various houses? Is it closer to, for example, Space Marines in 40K (where you can paint them whatever color you please and just say it's a successor chapter), or Space Marines in the Horus Heresy (where you're restricted to specific options and are expected to paint your army as it is officially depicted)?
As for color schemes, there's a bunch of House regiments whose color schemes don't line up with their faction's primary identifying color. For example, House Davion is typically identified by golden yellow but the Davion Brigade of Guards livery is dominated by blue with a red-and-white stripe going down one side.
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Backlog Challenge List
Vehicle, infantry, and artillery rules are popular, along with the various kinds of electronics warfare and advanced information sharing tools (like spotting lasers & tactical networks) mechs can mount. But these are only relevant if you are using those specific units or scenario conditions.
People like to paint their minis as factions, but it's not like either version of Warhammer in my experience. Battletech doesn't really have army books in the same sense, pretty much every faction can and will field salvaged units produced by other nations. So things are generally more relaxed (like, don't feel like you need to field matching minis). As far as using canon schemes versus homebrew; individual commands within each faction often have their own livery, and there's implicitly an endless sea of mercenary outfits out there, so feel free to cook up your own ideas if you like (these forums have a homebrew merc outfit called the Oosik Irregulars that was created as a guild for Mechwarrior Online and ended up getting canonized in an official sourcebook). If you do want to stick to specific team builds, just try to keep them consistent in terms of techbase and era (Battletech had a timeline that kept progressing, with new gear options and chassis being added over time).
If you want to peruse 'official' color schemes, Camo Specs is a great resource. It's not made by the studio that currently handles the game, but it draws on official references where possible, and is trying to keep things consistent. There's also the Unit Color Compendium, which has a big (>300 MB) downloadable pdf you can download under "Resources" and "Links to Battletech Resources".
While the "full" Classic Battletech rules would technically be several hundred pages over multiple books, the "core" rules are in the TotalWarfare book, but 99% of that can essentially be boiled down to a small set of lookup tables https://www.sarna.net/wiki/CBT_Tables The other books are for things like advanced tech weapons, construction rules if you want to make your own custom builds, and campaign rules for long term multi-session games. Though for custom builds, I'd just use Solaris Skunk Werks https://github.com/Solaris-Skunk-Werks/solarisskunkwerks/releases vs messing with the book. It will also let you print out any canon mech variant record sheet or save/print your custom loadout sheets.
As has been said, paint your minis however you like. I don't know anyone that would give you grief if a paint scheme doesn't match, even between mechs in the same lance, even if you say you are part of a canon unit.
Also, Battletech is not WYSIWYG. Don't worry about needing to alter your minis, though certainly feel free to if you'd like, if you feel like playing mech variant B today instead of variant A or even your own custom loadout. As long as the record sheet is valid, you're good. You could play with completely different chassis minis or cardboard cutouts as stand-ins if you wish.
There's also some digital tools that may be of help, such as https://flechs.net/ which is an electronic record sheet system for tracking play if you don't want to use or don't have physical record sheets but also allows for auto dice rolls, auto damage application, and a sort of multiplayer. I also like the "BT Dice Roller" app for my phone. If you either don't like rolling dice or dealing with the many rolls and table lookups needed for things like missile cluster hits, this will quickly do that for you. It also has all the CBT reference tables from above and a few others built in to look at if you wish.
And if you'd prefer a faster paced, simpler version of BT that's really designed for larger mini counts beyond the normal 4 on 4 mech lance sizes you can look into AlphaStrike rules as well. Here's the starter rules: https://bg.battletech.com/wp-content/uploads/Alpha Strike Quick Start Rules 2019-08.pdf It's hexless, damage and heat mechanics are greatly simplified so the recordsheets are simplified down to the size of playing cards and you can print off the card to play with for any unit you desire from http://masterunitlist.info/Unit/Filter
If you aren't already familiar with it, Sarna.net is the best wiki for Battletech. It has stats for canon units, fairly exhaustive coverage of lore, collections of official art, detailed maps, game rules for advanced equipment, real world information for products released for the IP, all sorts of stuff. Sarna has a moratorium on posting material from the latest releases, but pretty much everything ends up there eventually.
At this point I'd probably get things quicker if I bought packs directly from CGL whenever they went up on their site.
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2