In which Mike mostly gets to catch his breath, and report back from a game with the Enfield crew, some painting, listening and a whole load of admin!

Useful links:

• The Hexperts Podcast – Spotify | YouTube
• Recent Loren Coleman blog posts on tariffs and how they affect Catalyst – 1 | 2
• CGL acquire IWM!
• Upcoming events
• UK Games Expo BattleTech Events
• Bryan Young’s “Lone Wolf And Fox” anthology – Amazon
• Loren Coleman’s “Double Blind” – Amazon
• Randall Bill’s “Fall From Glory” – Amazon

In which Mike gets to chat with BattleTech author Tom Leveen about his experiences as an author, and the upcoming “Blood Will Rise”

Useful links:

• Blood Will Rise – Tom’s intro | Amazon UK | Catalyst Store (link coming soon)
• Tom’s “How To Write Awesome Dialogue” – Amazon UK
• Blood Will Tell – Amazon UK (print, Kindle or audiobook)
• Embers of War – Amazon UK (Kindle or audiobook)
• Mike on OnTableTop from Salute
• UK Games Expo BattleTech Events
• Element Games
• Leisure Games of Finchley
• Upcoming events

Also not mentioned in the podcast (for reasons of time!), the new UK BattleTech podcast Hexperts who, being more organised and efficient than me, already have six episodes out and I’ll talk more about next time!

In which Mike talks to BattleTech author Bryan Young about Fox Patrol, his recent IlClan era novels, and the upcoming VoidBreaker. And fails to remember to mention the date of Bedford Tabletop Expo (see the events page :D)

Useful links:

• Voidbreaker: Amazon UK pre-orders | Catalyst Preview
• Honor’s Gauntlet: Amazon UK | Catalyst
• A Question of Survival: Amazon UK | Catalyst
• Without Question: Amazon UK | Catalyst
• Fox Tales (compilation of the first few Fox Patrol Stories): Amazon UK | Catalyst
• Bryan’s Sarna page
• Upcoming events

In which Mike and partner-in-Alpha Strike-crime Bob Sawyer discuss the rules they’ve messed up while getting the hang of the game, and take a brief skim over what’s in stock in the UK and coming soon (hopefully).

Useful links:

• Operation DRAGONSLAYER (Enfield, Jan 25th)
• BattleTech Aces play through demo from Catalyst & Six Sides of Gaming
• I’ll post a link to the Beta SPAs when I can find one I’m certain is public!

All Day game:

Happy New Year!

Note: I’ve kept a fairly light hand on the editing to try and preserve the informal nature of our chat: as a result there’s a fair amount of mic noise from Bob’s headset. If you want him back, he promises to buy a decent mic 😀

In which Mike looks at the various new releases coming out, and talks to Sam Hall of Enfield Gamers about their upcoming WolfNet 350 Alpha Strike tournament.

[Note: apologies for the audio quality of Sam’s voice in places – it came through fine on my headphones but appears to have recorded (through no fault of Sam’s) with some annoying digital artefacts. I did my best to clean it up with the tools at my disposal, but sadly it’s not perfect (and in some cases the tools were making it worse!). However, as this is an episode with a bit of a time crunch, I’ve chosen to let it go so as to get the content out.]

Useful links:

• WolfNet 350 rules and resource page
• Enfield Gamers’ Wolfnet 350 event page for this coming Saturday October 12th 2024.
• The Of ‘Mechs and Men podcast
• Dual SRM-4 pod STL file for the MAD-SD. You’ll need to scale this to 75%, then take a razor saw to a MAD-3R’s AC-5 😀
• Kromlech Legionary left arm with sword for the Clanbuster Black Knight conversion.

And a couple of photos of stuff I’ve been working on:

In which Mike catches up with UK BattleTech-er and games developer Tom Lovewell (and finally figures out they probably met a lot longer ago than he originally thought!).

Useful links:

• Alpha Strike Matched Play rules
• The Sheffield Boardgames podcast (also on Apple, Spotify, Podbean)
• Kobold’s Cave Hobbies and Games, Stroud
• Cotswold BattleTech Game Day

In which Mike interviews BattleTech author Craig A. Reed Jr…

…in a conversation that covers most of the last century-and-a-half of the history of the Inner Sphere, as well as some sound advice on how to get started writing for Shrapnel and BattleTech, and a brief sidebar on the mighty Leeds United (MOT!).

Useful links:

• The site’s Events page;
• Craig’s Sarna page and list of works;
• Out today (Monday 15th July 2024)! – Craig’s new novel “In The Shadow Of The Dragon” on the Catalyst store (as EPUB and Kindle files), DriveThruFiction (EPUB) and Amazon UK (Kindle and print editions).
• “Icons of War”, Craig’s first novella – if you don’t have it in the recent Humble Bundle, it’s available from Catalyst, DriveThruFiction (EPUB and Kindle) and Amazon UK (Kindle, paperback and audiobook)
• The “Elements of Treason” trilogy is also available as e-books – see Craig’s list of works on Sarna, above, for those and the rest of his works.

Please note: Amazon links in the above are affiliate links from which I make a small percentage should you buy from them.