Eric R. Franklin @gamethyme@dice.camp

@jeff_schmidt I had the ... third(?) edition starter. The one that had plastics of all of the (later) Unseen included. Those always stood in for other 'Mechs, because those mechs were sadly underpowered.

@jeff_schmidt There was a loooong stretch when those were OOP, and a lot of us couldn't afford the figures.

The BT community has always been super-flexible.

I love watching hardcore Warhammer players giving Battletech a shot for the first time.

"What do you mean that quarter is an Atlas? Don't you have to have an Atlas mini?"

"It's painted green, so it's a Capellan 'Mech, right?"

I have a Blood Bowl league game this weekend. Imperial Nobles vs Skaven. Both teams are short-handed following their previous games. Could be a good one.

Google is changing how their Domain access to Workspace features works. It had been free and included with the domain account. Now it'll be $6/active user.

After two months of chaos, my Blood Bowl league is ready to continue. And it looks like every single team that's played its Week Three is down at least one player for Week 4.

@johnwsheldon Indeed. You may also want to phone your local shop before going in - I had to call four of them before I found one that had a pair in stock.

@johnwsheldon I say six, but I'm 90% certain that they're closer to ten.

@johnwsheldon They are not cheap. My new pair came out to about $300 after tax. But I love the fit and durability - this pair is at least six years old - and that's six years of daily wear.

@TabletopBellhop We do. I haven't been able to find anything wide enough from them.

It's one reason I wear Red Wings or Nike shoes - they either make my size or else stretch well to fit.

(Red Wings come in my size - they call it an "H" width rather than "4E"; Nikes nearly always stretch to fit)

Unrelated: It's new shoe day.
My current pair is ... eight? Nine? somewhere in that range. Red Wing makes solidly durable shoes.

Had them resoled about a year ago, but now there is a hole worn in the leather, right along a seam. And some of the stitching is going in the other shoe, so it's time.

I hate new shoes so. very. much.

I'm size 11.5, which isn't bad, but I'm also in the 4E width, which means my feet are roughly shaped like those of a duck. And it's super-hard to find 4E shoes.

I did something this week that I haven't done in literal years: Worked on revising a first English draft for an upcoming game.

It was good to dig back into it - I do kinda miss that part of the process.

Also: This is a weird rant to have to explain to my wife, and I hope she doesn't stumble across it. Her preferred 'Mechs are Clan 'Mechs. And I don't think she knows the metaplot at all. In fact, she knows Battletech from the Virtual World pods rather than from fiction or tabletop play.

I mean ... there are 'Mechs out there, now, that can Alpha Strike AND jump every single turn and not gain heat. And that's just insane.

Take this ranting with a shaker or two of salt, by the way. I that nut who won't get back into Magic: The Gathering largely because Mana Burn is gone.

#OldManYellsAtTechnologicalAdvancementInAGame

I've pondered reducing the effectiveness of the DHS from 2 heat to 1.5, but I don't know if that'd make enough of a difference for my taste.

Solaris VII used to have rules for which trigger the Mechwarrior pulled impacting weapons fire (rather than deciding round-by-round which weapons fire and which don't).

But heat was the big limiting factor in the game for a very long time, and the DHS made that particular aspect of the strategy null.

Too many of the tech advances broke my enjoyment of the game - most especially Double Heat Sinks.

Honestly, if you stripped out the development of the DHS, I suspect I'd like most of the other techs okay (other than ClanTech, but that's a different bundle of worms). But I've only seen a very small handful of 'Mechs designed for the post-3025 era that didn't use the DHS.

I'm re-reading Battletech novels. I read a ton of these when I was a kid, and, even then, I recognized that they were ... not great.

I still like the setting and its metaplot (to a point). But I really REALLY hate what that metaplot did to the tabletop game.

My preferred era of tabletop play is just after the Third Succession War.

Last week, I got an offer to run demos at a con for another publisher. It's something I'm good at and have a lot of experience doing.
But I haven't been to a convention in nearly three years, and I honestly don't know if I'll ever attend another one in person.