CGL has posted a beta PDF for BattleTech - Combat Manual: Mercenaries, the first in a series of faction-specific* volumes aimed primarily at expanding the Alpha Strike game system. These volumes seem to be set in the early Clan Invasion era, to match the initial focus of the AS core book itself. I'm not sure what kind of setup CGL may have in mind for other eras later on. Also, the page introducing the BT setting has been revised, to add a new universe primer and a quick-start PDF for AS. *If one counts the overall "mercenary" banner as a single "faction", per se.
Mercenary Star unit of Heavies and Medium for the Battletech universe. 1/60 Warhammer, 1/55 MadCat, 1/72 Shadowhawk, 1/100 HiMetal-R Ostsol, and 1/60 Rifleman. Waiting on the 1/100 HiMetal-R Marauder to field a full Heavy Star...
The PDF has been released for BattleTech: First Succession War, a new volume which looks at the most devastating conflict in Inner Sphere history. A print edition of this volume will be out in the not too distant future.
Since I've relegated my HMRs to the BT/MW universe... My ragtag mercs just got augmented with a Stinger-LAM, and then won a hard-fought Trial of Possession for this Stone Rhino II prototype from the Jade Chickens: http://i.imgur.com/cmHmFhyl.jpg Can't wait for the next year's HMR Shadowhawk...
In... begrudging fairness to Harmony Gold, some of the designs that became an issue, such as the Wolverine, Locust, Battlemaster, and such were never because of action on the part of HG. Those got caught up in this weird legal tangle that was affecting Studio Nue and Tatsunoku, if memory serves. It's just that those designs got swept up at the same time that HG was being a whiny bitch.
So they really did license the designs from someone? Because I remember that original book having some designs that were slightly altered, I figured to try to get around copyright.
I don't think it was to get around copyright since they had permission at the time. They WERE changed MUCH later for that reason. Once referred to as the Unseen, they've recently returned as the Reseen. When they were originally included the changes made(most notably to the designs originating in Macross) were solely to make them fit in the Battletech 'verse.
I mean I think I had the first edition of technical readout 3025 back in the days and being familiar with Dougram, Macross, and Crusher Joe, I could tell some of them were straight copies of other artwork (like the Archer and Warhammer, which still had some artist's signature) and some were like traced and modified, which I had always thought was because they didn't have the rights to use the images. For instance the Wasp, the Crusader, even whatever they called that Zentraedi Battlepod that they put arms and different legs on (Ostroc?).
No, those were just to bring the Macross designs more in line visually with the rest of the 'Mech designs. If there's more to it than that, I'm not aware.
According to a friend of mine that I game with, the title of the game was originally going to be called Battledroids. I bet it got changed to Battletech because of the Flannelled one.
