Tuesday, June 17, 2014

2014 Battletech Introductory Boxed Set Figure Comparison P1

Mid to late 2012 I purchased the Battletech 25th Anniversary Introductory Boxed Set for an easy way to bolster my available battlemech miniatures and for the great sturdy folding map boards. The boxed set was a great deal for the money and still is the perfect boxed game in my opinion. There is a large amount of complaints against the plastic miniatures in the box set. Some of the miniatures were bad casts and some were plain awful, but still workable. Most of the issues seem to appear more as the size of the battlemech increases. The One thing to keep in mind is all of the miniatures were perfectly fine for play, but some were not good enough for painting due to the bad molding of the details. Some can't stand the sight of them, but people like me, don't care and will give them table time anyway.

Somewhere in late 2013 the world got world a new boxed set would be released with better looking and better molded battlemech miniatures. I couldn't wait and courtesy of Father's Day I have it. The box cover art has changed to an Atlas kicking ass and dishing out death. Another bonus of having both sets is I now have two sets of the great folding map boards.


Listed below are some noticeable differences between the two sets of miniatures.

25th plastic is a shiny dark grey color, 2014 is a dull light grey color
25th plastic is softer, 2014 is harder
25th hexagon bases are slightly rough on the top, 2014 bases are smooth
One additional element, 2014 bases are numbers from the lightest battlemech Commando at number 1 to the heaviest battlemech Atlas at number 24.

I intent t make this a five part informative post series starting with light battlmechs. Next will be medium battlemechs, followed by heavy battlemechs and assault battlemechs, and finishing with special battlemechs.

Part 01 Light Battlemechs


Commando

25th Introductory Boxed Set


2014 Introductory Boxed Set

The 2014 Commando has better molded CT missile launchers and arms.

25th Introductory Boxed Set and 2014 Introductory Boxed Set


2014 Commando leans back a bit more and is shorter.


Spider

25th Introductory Boxed Set


The 25th Spider's rear jump jets are  separate part weakly glued on.

2014 Introductory Boxed Set


The jump jets appear bent, but they are leveled with the torso which is slightly tilted.
 The jump jets are not a separate part.

25th Introductory Boxed Set and 2014 Introductory Boxed Set


The 25th Spider is almost as good compared to 2014 Spider which has slightly better molded details.
 Overall both Spiders are fine as is and 25th Spider is taller.


Jenner

25th Introductory Boxed Set


2014 Introductory Boxed Set


2014 Jenner has better molded CT missile weapons, arms and jump jets.

25th Introductory Boxed Set and 2014 Introductory Boxed Set


25th Jenner leans forward more.


Panther

25th Introductory Boxed Set


25th Panther's legs was not even molded correctly and as you can see I have tried previously to fix them.

2014 Introductory Boxed Set


25th Introductory Boxed Set and 2014 Introductory Boxed Set


If the 25th Panther's legs were not messed up the model would be just as good as the 2014 Panther.
The 25th Panther is taller than the 2014 Panther.


I am not a big nit-picker when it comes to comparing models especially when they are at the same price point. The designers stated they would be better quality and they delivered in my opinion. Please feel free to ask questions you might have about the models or the boxed sets. Next time I will compare the largest  portion of the models the medium battlemechs.


Monday, June 16, 2014

Battletech Battle Report

Second Campaign Battle


I bring to you another great detailed Battletech Battle Report for your reading and viewing pleasure. This report details the second portion battle about a few days after the first battle mentioned here. This battle report is seriously over due, but I once heard in person to get it posted so here it is. Please enjoy.


Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Restarting after a stall

I kept promising myself I would update this blog and here I am noticing the last time I posted was back in January of this year. Most of it is me being lazy, but aren't we all anyway. So here I promise to update my blog with some new stuff to read and rant about.

So how do I sum up five months or so in review? I guess I can try my best if anyone is interested.

First on all, I have gotten nothing painted, lol, not really proud of it, but hey I'm being honest. I am still painting two Assault Squads simultaneously. Sometimes I wonder if I should hold off for a bit as there is rumor of a new codex. My Minecraft server and XBOX absorbs a lot of time and energy.

I have managed to get a few games of 40K in and mostly it is me being lazy about going down to play and just wanting to stay and home an relax. I played a few games pat my game in January using my Blood Angels. Despite the Blood Angels obviously issues here and there I have tooled my list to be a more shooting army than assault army overtime and it has been able to tie or win games most of the times. One game I played Bob' Eldar which had a wraithlord, I think, refuse to die despite throwing ridiculous amounts of firepower at it.

I got play Tyranids a few times post new codex. The army was previously shelved. I tried the army out for the first time in a big 2 vs 1 with my Tyranids having 3,000 points to Scott's Orks and Mac's Ultramarines armies at 1,500 points a piece. It was huge cluster fuck of  game, but it was cool to use almost all of the units to view their individual strengths and weaknesses. Scott was mostly mechanized and came after me while Mac turtled away most of the game. However I did get to feed his terminators to pack of hungry genstealers.



I got to play Mac again using my Blood Angels and the game was a pleasure to play. He used a balanced list in my opinion, no huge power characters or power units so it was a good game overall.

The previous weekend I brought out my Tyranids for another try at the new codex and still used 6th edition. I played against a dwarf, no um must have been one of these guy's, I originally thought it was Bob Hoskin's without the Russian accent of Stalingrad of course, really the dude's name was David or Dave. Anyway he had an awesome Iron Hands marine army with attempted to shoot the stuffing out of my Tyranid's. He used a twin factored list of Land Raider Crusaders, Centurion Sqauds, and raw troops. His army color scheme would make the Green Ranger proud and damn I thought at one point he might summon the Dragonzord. It was hella fun despite my endless early complaining about the lack of quality codex.

I played a game against demons with my Blood Angels against  Edwin. This is all I have to say.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU Daemons!
Edwin is a power gamer, lol.
I Played him previously with his Necrons, which were sent back to the bakery, then against his Bolter Bitches which got bitched out for Tyranids, lol, and last his Daemons.
Edwin is not allow to talk about why he likes Daemons, lol.
Edwin's day shall come, Bob is in France, so I must wait, but for Edwin, I must say soon.

That's all I got to say about that. Just like when Forest Gump is on TV you watch it like 300 which is on right now while I type this post.

I have battle reports to catch up on. Sometimes I wonder if its worth is, but I enjoy creating them and placing humor in them to see  if anyone can spot it. I still have a Battletech battle report to post following up on another large battle report along with more smaller reports. Most of my Battletech battle reports are from my ongoing ATOW campaign I run in Kingsport. I periodically take a week or few off to create story arcs, but I try to keep it going as much as I can.

I went to Washington DC and toured the nation's capitol. It was cool and fun. I wish I had more time, but I think anyone will realize this a day in or so. There is simply to much to do and see and money can run out quick if you are not careful.

I found out in the latest email update the Robotech Kickstarter will ship in maybe July, another month from what they said would be June. This makes the Kickstarter now eight plus months behind. The only good thing is the models look awesome ad I will have enough to support two or more players. Another bonus is I fund two players which bought the boxed game so their is potential to play it a few times.

Not that it matters much, but I am thinking of switching my large dice for smaller dice.

There is probably more to say, but I can't think about it all right now, but you get the picture I am going to post again soon so stay with me.

Oh yeah, one more important thing. I believe the long war between two major powers has perhaps ended. I forgave him awhile ago, I don't hold grudges, I think he did to, and I never stopped reading his blog.