It seems that the Battle Masters in the context of the TCC Game are... slightly confusing... The Alt mode side of these cards has them labeled as Weapon upgrades. This looks like any other Weapon Upgrade Battle Card in the game except that this one transforms into a tiny robot. Character cards normally have to start the game in alt mode but starting the game in alt mode for these guys would mean that you're starting the game with a weapon upgrade already attached to one of your larger characters. This almost feels like a catch 22 here because you can't start the game already in robot mode and you can't start the game with weapon upgrades already on your characters so either mode their in it feels like your cheating since no other character can break the rules like that. How do these things work? The only exception here seems to be Ravage and other Cassettes because their alt modes are cassettes that deploys from Soundwave or Blaster and don't act as a weapon upgrades. The cassette modes don't seem to break any rules by starting the game in alt mode like the weapon modes of other Battle Masters.
Battlemasters start the game in Bot mode. They do not flip between modes like Micromasters or the larger character cards do. Battlemasters ONLY flip into their upgrade mode once they have been KO'd in Bot mode. Lionizer, for example, will be used as a first attacker because a) you want him in upgrade mode ASAP and b) your opponent has to make an attack on him that they would rather use on someone else on your team.
Well this was a really short thread... Still feels kinda odd to start in Bot mode when no one else can do that but that pretty much answered my question so... thread done? Or perhaps we can leave it open in case anyone else has questions or needs further explanation. Actually here's a follow up question... Was there a starter pack I missed with a new rule sheet that explains these things? The last one I heard about was the Soundwave vs. Blaster set but as I mentioned before the Cassettes operate on a deployer method similar to the cards in the Matroplex set where they start out in alt mode under the larger robot. I'm trying not to go too crazy on Booster Packs but I would like to at least pick up all the starter sets they have out so if there's some sort of Battle Master starter kit I'm not currently aware of...
None of the starter sets have any Battlemasters. I have not picked up the Soundwave vs. Blaster set yet to look at the rules insert; however, I do not believe that the Battlemasters have a mention in the rules inserts. All of the Battlemasters have rules text on the Bot mode side that explains that Battlemasters do not flip until KO'd.
