Father's Day Gift Ideas
Prior to Father's Day my wife asked me for some gift ideas. I did some searching and remembered I have been wanting a few more BattleTech: Alpha Strike: Lance Packs to add to my collection of battlemech miniatures. The reason I like the lance packs is each lance pack contains four battlemech miniatures for a reasonable price expanding upon the miniatures contained in the 25th Anniversary Introductory Box Set. The four battlemech miniatures consist or two new battlemech miniatures not featured in the Battletech 25th Anniversary Box Set along with two battlemech miniatures featured in the Battletech 25th Anniversary Box Set. The new featured battlemechs are BlackJack, Cataphract, Centurion, Charger, Firestarter, Flea, Hatchetman, Orion, Raven, Shogun, Stalker, Victor, Wolfhound, and Vulcan.I found a store online who sold them at a remarkable 35% off retail price. In additonal I already own three lance packs, Assault and Pursuit when they first came available and Fire lance as a gift from a friend. Taking into account what I already owned, I sent her a list of I what I wanted.
Wish List
BattleTech: Alpha Strike: Assault Lance Pack x 1
BattleTech: Alpha Strike: Battle Lance Pack x 2
BattleTech: Alpha Strike: Fire Lance Pack x 1
BattleTech: Alpha Strike: Pursuit Lance Pack x 1
BattleTech: Alpha Strike: Recon Lance Pack x 2
If can swing
BattleTech: Alpha Strike: Command Lance Pack x 2
If can really swing
BattleTech: Alpha Strike: Support Lance Pack x 2
Father's Day Gift Reveal
I kind of left my ideas at this for awhile. Before I could give her some other ideas she had taken the list I gave her and made an order. She told me she ordered everything I wanted on the list except some things might only have one. I was more than happy to hear this as my collection of battlemech miniatures was about to be bolstered further. My future games and campaign games would now have access to a host of new battlemechs.
Soon enough a good sized package arrived at my doorstep. Inside I found way more than I expected. I received everything I asked for minus one copy of the Battle lance pack and she told me they only had one in inventory. I can get another Battle lance pack at another time. I think I did quite well with this gift haul.
If you noticed I don't own and didn't ask for the Striker lance pack because currently I don't want it. It is the only one of the lance packs which has only one new battlemech miniature not featured in the 25th Anniversary Box Set being the Guillotine along with three battlemech miniatures featured in the 25th Anniversary Box Set being the, Panther, Dragon, and Quickdraw. I don't use Quickdraws all to often, I despise Dragons and dislike using them besides cannon fodder, Panthers I suppose I could use for future campaigns/games featuring Draconis Combine forces. To obtain the Guillotine I may have trade or purchase a pair somehow.
BattleTech: Alpha Strike: Striker Lance
The Grand Scheme
My grand scheme of things is to obtain four copies of each lance pack, four copies of the 25th Anniversary Box Set and four copies of the Third Edition Box Set. I have since passed on the idea of obtaining a copy the City Tech boxed set as it's miniatures are much less than desirable. The battlemechs within these box sets and lance packs blend perfectly together with each other giving me many opportunities in my various Battletech games. However, four copies is a bit unrealistic and possibly overboard especially when it comes to the Third Edition Box Set. Third Edition miniatures are tough to purchase in a full set, people complain about the quality and still sell them at high prices because they are unseen. Two copies is more realistic without going overboard. Two copies will suffice mainly because I like to use battlemechs in pairs using the same or different variant. On top of this idea, I recently purchased a PDF copy of the new First Succession War source book and there are rules for playing games with multiples of the same battlemech.
All these battlemech miniatures are plastic miniatures ready to play right out of the box, no assembly required minus the Third Edition miniatures. Buying plastic miniatures is the best way to expand a battlemech miniature collection extremely fast. Trying to purchase all of the miniatures contained in the Alpha Strike lance packs alone is a lot. There is constant sway on whether the Alpha Strike lance pack miniatures are good or not, but they are good. They are of the same quality of the miniatures contained in the 25th Anniversary Box Set and far better than the quality of the Classic Box Set. The Third Edition miniatures are fine by to me as they were the first Battletech miniatures I owned and played with so they will forever be in high favor, this makes them far valuable to me past reasons of quality and unseen.
I own one Third Edition Boxed Set and luckily I was able to purchase a full set of the Third Edition miniatures in excellent condition. This second set has already made a mark in campaign games. I also own one copy of the Classic Boxed Set and one copy of the 25th Anniversary Boxed Set. Honestly I would like to replace my copy of the Classic Boxed Set with another copy of the 25th Anniversary boxed set. Honestly I would like to replace the copy of the formal with a copy of the latter as the latter has better quality miniatures. Nonetheless, both box sets see heavy use in my Battlemech games.
My Plastic Battlemech Collection So Far
Since this recent haul of plastic miniatures is pretty significant to me I wonder how many plastic battlemech miniatures I now own in my collection. I like numbers so lets see some numbers and lets do some math.
Lets see some numbers!
I have thirteen 13 BattleTech: Alpha Strike: lance packs with each lance pack containing four miniatures for a total of 52 miniatures. I have one copy of the 25th Anniversary Box Set containing 24 miniatures. I have one copy of the Classic Boxed Set containing 24 miniatures. I have one copy of the Third Edition boxed set containing 14 miniatures plus one extra full set of 14 Third Edition miniatures for a total of 28 miniatures. I am not counting the exclusive miniatures which came with the Classic Box Set or the 25th Anniversary Box Set. I consider those exclusives like collectibles which never see any use.
Lets do some math!
Alpha Stike Lance packs x 13 = 52 miniatures
25th Anniversary Box Sett = 24 miniatures
Classic Box Set = 24 miniatures
Third Edtion Box Set = 13 miniatures
Third Edition Box Set = 13 miniatures
52 + 24 + 24 +28 = 128 Plastic Battletech battlemech miniatures!
Conclusion
I think anyone can conclude I love Battletech, the new lance packs, and plastic battlemech miniatures. I use every plastic battlemech miniature I own as much as I can and look forward to using my new plastic battemech miniatures. I already have plans to use a lot of these new battlemechs in my ongoing Battletech ATOW RPG campaign and hopefully I can play out some generic games suing these new battlemechs as well.
