BattleTech In 2024 – An Interview With Line Developer Ray Arrastia & Assistant Line Developer Aaron Cahall

We’re starting the year off with a bang here at Sarna. We’re asking the tough questions, getting the unexpected answers, and determining where BattleTech will go over the course of 2024. I recently sat down with BattleTech Line Developer Ray Arrastia and Assistant Line Developer Aaron Cahall for the lowdown on what’s coming to BattleTech this year as well as what’s been going on with BattleTech‘s recent history.

This is Sarna’s biggest interview yet, so I hope you brought some popcorn. Enjoy.

Sean (Sarna): First of all, thanks for agreeing to make Sarna your first interview of 2024. How were your holidays? 

Ray (Catalyst Game Labs): Thanks for having us, Sean. The holidays were good. Lots of rest of recuperation after the year we had. It was a busy year.

Sean: Well, I wanted to start off with getting a little bit of background for both of you, since I don’t think I’ve interviewed you before, Ray. I may have asked you a few questions here and there, but I don’t think we’ve actually sat down to have a chat with a microphone or anything.

Ray: We did a couple years back, I think we did a written interview. 

Sean: A quick thing for the Clan Invasion, I think. 

Ray: Yeah.

Sean: And now we have Mercenaries to talk about, but we’ll get to that later. First, as briefly as possible, could you give us a kind of rundown on your BattleTech journey from being a fan, then an illustrator, and then becoming the BattleTech Line Developer?

Ray: A friend of mine introduced our group to BattleTech when I was in high school in the ‘80s. It became my go-to. We did lots of gaming, tabletop gaming, and role-playing, but BattleTech was always the go-to. If nothing else, we could throw down with BattleTech.

And in the first store, I’ve always had BattleTech running. BattleTech was the number one thing; they had miniatures and model kits all over the place decorating the store. You could go in any time day or night and get into a BattleTech game. So I was always there sort of in the background. 

My professional background is design and production, and just in my own time I would make TROs and little sourcebooks and things—try and get them to look as professional as possible. Match the stuff that FASA was putting out. You know, it was a really dark day for a lot of us when FASA closed its doors. And then FanPro came along, and I wanted to be involved there.

They were running big canon events, and we never had any at the store. I finally came to the conclusion that if I wanted to play in them, I needed to run them. So I started as a Commando, as they were called back then—the demo team. That was my first foot in the door because they had a fanzine and I offered to help with that. I was involved from the editorial level, where I was soliciting articles to go in there and edit them; I was doing the layout, and I was creating graphics for it. 

That got the attention of the powers that be at the time, and I started doing little layout and design stuff. I showed them illustrations that I could do that weren’t necessarily anything special, but I thought could add to the line. So I started doing illustrations for them, layout, and under Herb, they started to utilize me more and more because of my background, both in my love for the universe and my professional skills.

I was doing a little bit of everything, even working and speaking with Iron Wind Metals doing QC and some of their packaging. Practically living on all the online forums back in the day, I just started to become involved in everything in the community, and due to that, I wound up sort of with a seat at the table with BattleTech Creative, which carried over then to Catalyst.

For the longest time, I said that I’m the most involved person in BattleTech you’ve never heard of. You could go back through some of the books and just look in the credits, you’ll find me somewhere doing something, whether it’s miniature painting, layout, or proofing, whatever.

By the time the Kickstarter rolled around, BattleTech had been going through some issues. Brent stepped up as Line Developer, but he was both Line Developer and Art Director for Catalyst. Now he’s just the Catalyst Art Director, and they needed somebody to fill that Line Developer slot. And, uh, well, here I am. I’ve been so involved in everything that I still feel that I was the logical choice to take on that operation and let Brent do the art direction. And keep things moving in the, you know, with the vision that we’ve had.

Sean: So you would be the guy who basically knows everything. Is that fair to say?

Ray: I’ve grown so much over 40 years now, that it’s really difficult. Now, I’ve got people to know everything and my external hard drive is here to pick up my slack, and there is a lot nowadays. So, uh, yeah, you could say that.

Sean: I know that you were an illustrator before you moved into the more administrative things with BattleTech and Catalyst. What would you say was your favorite BattleTech character that you drew, or a favorite unit logo?

Ray: The Master, Thomas Marik, stands out. He and Devlin Stone. 

Now with Thomas, it’s because he had already been illustrated several times and I tried to get all those different versions of him and get something quintessential. And make sure that I harken back to the original source in the Marik sourcebook. Then with Devlin Stone, he had never been depicted. In fact, the very first time that I illustrated him, he was in shadow because he was still kind of an unknown. So those two stand out. 

But in general with the illustrations, what I love are the existing characters, where the challenge was trying to either pass through the essence of their original depictions back in the old days or try and marry all the different depictions. That’s the kind of thing I really enjoyed. 

As far as unit logo, that’d be a toss-up between Hansen’s Roughriders and McGee’s Cutthroats. Those two have always stood out as really cool. Like, Hansen’s Roughriders is still 70’s and 80’s metal. 

Sean: And for Aaron, what was your BattleTech journey? I think you’re more on the writer’s side than the illustrating side. Is that right? 

Aaron (Catalyst Game Labs): That’s accurate. Yeah. 

Sean: So instead of illustrations, what’s your favorite sourcebook you worked on? But let’s start with your BattleTech journey, Aaron. What got you into BattleTech, and how did you eventually arrive at being an Assistant Line Developer?

Aaron: I came into BattleTech like a lot of folks in my relative age bracket, our relative age bracket did. Just because Ray started in the ‘80s and I started in the early ‘90s doesn’t mean we’re of different generations or anything. But I was introduced to it by friends. Played it for a while, a good long while, got really into it. Kind of fell out of it during college, my early professional life, came back to it in about 2012 as a player. 

But in the meantime, I developed two degrees in journalism. I worked as an editor. I worked as a technical writer, which anyone who’s done that knows a lot of those jobs is actually like technical editing of gigantic documents; super technical things where every detail matters and people worry about everything, which makes me perfectly suited to help by editing BattleTech stuff.

I started as a writer contributor with a couple of small pieces. I started proofing as part of the fact-check team when they would send around PDFs of different small products, stuff like that. I would edit and proof them, even though they had, I now realize, already been edited, and I hope I didn’t tweak anyone by coming in behind them and finding stuff. 

That led to Ray, in his role as Layout Production Manager in 2015, offering me the opportunity to be the sole Editor and Developmental Editor of Interstellar Operations. Talk about a first assignment! I actually got a developer credit in that book. I say it’s my first development too, although we didn’t start there. I was just finding stuff that needed fixing. 

So from there, I became the BattleTech Line Editor. When Ray moved up to Line Developer after about a year, it was clear that I was already doing the assistant stuff anyway, we just wanted to put a title to it. 

We can talk more about what that means, but the short version is that everybody who’s had that role has kind of created their own version of what that is. Some have approached it like they’re the first officer of the starship BattleTech—and if the captain’s not around, they can make decisions—and some people have approached it as like, senior writer. I approach it as I’m Ray’s assistant; nothing more, nothing less. I’m his—what do I always say—therapist, external hard drive, and writer wrangler because I have the writing background. I think we pair well because he has an art and production background.

Ray: Wartime consigliere. 

Aaron: Consigliere. I forgot the good one. Um, yeah, therapist, wartime consigliere, external hard drive.

My favorite sourcebook is Tamar and it’s not even close. Because that was the first one where ilClan had been in the water supply for almost a decade at that point. People sorta knew what was gonna happen—maybe not every deck chair and destroyed unit, but that was the first one where we got to actually start telling a story.

My favorite ever FASA book… Honestly, it’s probably Field Manual: Mercenaries. When I first started playing, man, I would read that thing until the cover came off. Like, every little unit. I knew the Dragoon’s ratings, man, I could reel them off.  It was not the first, but to me, it had my first build a unit, and play through with tracking of money. That comes from Merc’s Handbook, I now know, but at the time, coming off the 4th Edition box set and First Strike, and a couple of the supplements, that blew my mind. That was like, oh man, there are actual rules here for me building a unit just like I read about in Main Event. I could have my own little Black Thorns, and run them through missions until they accidentally get nuked, I guess.

Sean: When I was speaking with Brent, he told me that everyone has a list of their favorite ‘Mechs that they’re still waiting to get remastered. What ‘Mechs are on your list, which of those ‘Mechs have we already seen being remade, and which ones are you still waiting for? 

Ray: Marauder, first and foremost. Then you have the classics like Warhammer, Archer, and Phoenix Hawk, but Marauder is top of the list. With the two Kickstarters now, we’ve already done pretty much everything near and dear to my heart.

You know, there are a few PC game and Civil War designs that I’m looking forward to. They’re on the list somewhere. But I want to see the brand new Recognition Guide stuff hit play. We have some of those on the list as well. I wouldn’t say there’s anything there that particularly stand out, I would just like to see all of those brought to the forefront. There’s some really great Jade Falcon and Wolf designs that I want to see. And Sea Fox designs as well. 

Sean: We need more Sea Fox stuff in general, I think. And for you Aaron, what’s on your list? 

Aaron: I got my favorite, much like Ray did. Mine is the Wraith. It was an Alpha Strike box set, and I’d suggested that one, but I suggested it knowing that it’s one of Loren‘s favorites, too. I mean, he obviously wrote a character who drives one. I’d wanted it, and we were trying to figure out what would sell Loren on the idea of doing an Alpha Strike box, and it just seemed like a good chance to kill two birds with one stone, right? 

You can ask Ray maybe later about the debate over the antenna and see if he has some sort of PTSD. There was an entire email battle over what to do about those antennas. So I didn’t realize what I was unleashing on him. Like a good assistant, I went and suggested something that became a huge problem.

My favorite unmade ‘Mech, I’m kind of looking forward to the Devastator. Selfishly, I’ve held one when Randall brought those production proofs a year ago, and it is every bit the chonky guy that I want him to be.

Like Ray, I’m looking forward to some of the Rec. Guide stuff. Things like the Iron Cheetah, like the Jade Phoenix. To be able to hold it, see it in plastic, that’s gonna help the ilClan era really become a thing. The Rec. Guides are half the battle, but the other half is you have to be able to put it on the table. I’m excited, to the extent of what they’re gonna do to help cement the ilClan era, the current era of play, and get people playing games with the new books.

Sean: Brent also told me we’re going to be seeing more AeroSpace fighters when there’s a product that actually supports them. And he said that you’re really looking for a product to kind of replace AeroTech.

What are you looking for in a new AeroTech game? And do you think the optional Alpha Strike rules are the best we’re going to get for now? Or is there an actual AeroTech game out there just waiting to be found?

Ray: I’ll answer that generally, not specifically; what we’re looking for is a fun game. A fun AeroSpace game. I know there are lots of fans of the existing system. And I can tell you that because I’ve been in the game for almost 40 years and I’ve got the original AeroTech box.

I love AeroSpace, WarShips, DropShips, all that. But we have to step away from the idea that something is untouchable the way that we are with the BattleTech core. Even if we consider that core, people just don’t play it. There are a few hardcore people, but otherwise, people don’t play it.

And it needs to be fun on its own. We can’t just say we need something to support the ground game—we need a fun game in and of itself. A lot goes into producing these minis, and there really is no point if there isn’t a game to play them with. 

As far as ground support and integrating AeroSpace, we have the Battlefield Support system, and the response to that has been good. I only say good because a lot of people aren’t aware. It is set up as a separate, optional system right now in the BattleMech Manual, it’s not in any of the old core lines.

Um, is that right, Aaron? Or is it in the Campaign? 

Aaron: No, it started in BattleMech Manual. It was built out in Battle of Tukayyid and the forthcoming Mercs box. 

Ray: So it’s more of we haven’t really moved that to a core system yet but the people who have used it, that’s what most people are looking for as far as getting the AeroSpace involved in supporting the ground game. You know, if you play the old school integrating AeroSpace, they’re on the board for like one turn. They take a shot, they can be shot at, and then they’re gone. And this system just does that and it gets rid of all the keeping track of the secondary game.

If this is the first time that the readers are hearing about it, please check it out and give it a try in the BattleMech Manual. 

Sean: I’m still looking to give it a try myself, but I’m looking forward to getting the Visigoth and having a strafing run or two.

Ray: Aaron, anything to add to that? 

Aaron: Not much. I would just say that the thing I always hear when people come up at cons or in games that I’m running here locally in Maryland, is you’re killing the AeroSpace game. The challenge I usually ask them is, would you rather have a system that’s decades old, that is supposed to Voltron onto the main game, but isn’t easy to use so no one plays it, or would you rather have a game that’s sort of separate from it, but that plays and grows.

There’s something about AeroSpace that must have attracted the AeroSpace folks, right? And it probably wasn’t convincing other players to use these rules over and over and over. It was probably something about getting into dogfights in space. Like, strip away the sentimentality of the box, as Ray hit on, and talk to me about what is it about that experience that you enjoy. And let’s put that into a game. 

I guarantee when they don’t have to work so hard to convince a lot of playgroups to do these rules, I don’t think they’re going to worry so much about the old box. They’re going to be happier that they can find a game of it and it’s something that people are interested in. It’s growing. It’s alive. It’s not this box on the shelf that they bring out and people start going, “Oh man, like, I don’t know.”

Sean: Yeah. That sounds about right to me. Give me something that is fun on its own and doesn’t need to become an overcomplicated beast.

Since this is the first interview of 2024, I gotta ask when we’re going to get a bunch of stuff. Let’s call this the rapid-fire part of the interview, starting with the Battletech Universe book. When are we going to get it? 

Ray: Should be this summer. I would have to dig through some of the price sheets to give you a quarter, but it’s somewhere about this summer.

And note that while the LE Deluxe box is part of the Kickstarter, the actual book itself is not. So there’s a possibility Universe could come out before. I think more likely we’ll see fulfillment of the Kickstarter before the book comes out, but not necessarily. 

Sean: Alright, next up: Force Manual: Davion?

Ray: Maybe first quarter, more likely second quarter. See, I see you laughing over there. 

Aaron: I’m laughing because I know you were talking about this in the last 24 hours trying to answer that exact question internally. And it figures that you would give us point blank in a recorded interview. “Hey, when’s it coming out?” Guaranteed that any answer you give will be wrong. 

Ray: Yes. 

Sean: So, grain of salt? 

Ray: Second quarter, maybe first. 

Sean: Okay, next up, Force Manual: House Kurita?

Ray: Uh, quarter after that. So, likely third quarter. 

Sean: After that, Force Manual: Mercenaries? 

Ray: Well, not exactly hot on the heels, so we could see that fourth quarter this year. It might be pushed back to the year after. 

Sean: Okay. Next up: ilKhan’s Eyes Only? This is a recent announcement, so we’re also kind of looking forward to it progressing the universe timeline.

Ray: Yeah, and it was pushed back and pushed back. This year, for sure. But, its rails are a little rickety, I’d say. 

Aaron: Writing has started on it. They have sections in already, so it is being written. The story has been broken. I used this term at PAX and I gotta catch myself. I said the story had been broken for a while. I meant that in screenwriter terms; we know what the story is. We’ve known that for a little while now. So, you know, it’s moving. 

Ray: The reason it took so long for writing to start is we’re back at the point where we’ve got fixes coming out, and we want to make sure that the big stories align well with the sourcebook and that they’re not tripping on each other. We’re not spoiling one or the other, you know, they have their own place. 

This is the one everybody’s been waiting for; find out what’s been going on behind the wall. It’s taken a lot of time to coordinate. We are as, as a company and IP, in uncharted territory, but even more so because the industry is completely different than 30 or 40 years ago.

Sean: Well, away from the book side and onto the recently announced Star League-era ForcePacks. Couple of really good ones coming in those. When are we going to start seeing those hitting store shelves? 

Ray: We’ve got four packs, and it’s scheduled for one per quarter. Work on the first pack is completed except for I think they’re wrapping up the design of the packaging. Work on the other three packs is well underway. So at the moment, we’re still on track for one per quarter, that’s the goal. If that slides at all, it’ll probably be this first pack that might edge into the second quarter.

Does that sound right, Aaron? 

Aaron: And that might be a victim of Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year. But this isn’t one of those things where we’ve gotten away from announcing stuff before it’s even been started.

The days of like, it’s vaporware when we announce it and then we’ll start making it are pretty much gone. As a company, we’ve learned our lesson. Certainly, Ray and I have been trying to hold off on letting things out of the bag before there’s some reality to them. Otherwise, you just get asked about them forever. 

Ray: Pretty much all the product that has been announced publicly are either near completion or at some point of progress, even if delays happen. 

So what that means is that we have several projects that we’ve been working on for a long time that we have yet to announce. We won’t do so until we’re much closer to the finish line. 

Sean: Let’s move on to the meatier questions. This one was submitted by a Sarna reader. BattleTech in the current ilClan era has a kind of a bit of a problem with not having a lot of heroes. Not like in the older eras of BattleTech where we had the Victor Davions, the Justin Xiang Allards. We’ve got a lot of crazy people, like Gavin Davion and Alaric Ward. Julian Davion was sort of supposed to be the hero of the hour, but he’s basically been falling short every single time. You could argue that he’s kind of in the trials of his hero journey, but he hasn’t really become the hero that the Inner Sphere needs just yet. 

Who do you see as BattleTech‘s current group of heroes in the ilClan era? Do you think we have really that many, or are we going to be getting more? And could they not be the white knights that BattleTech has had historically?

Ray: You know, of course we hear this a lot, and I think it’s more of a generational thing. If you talk to players who have entered the game anywhere within the last five years, they’ll tell you their heroes, they’ll tell you who their favorite characters are in the current era.

The problem is if you talk about Victor, you have 30, 35 years of Victor to look back on. Somebody coming into the game new has this vast opinion built up about Victor just handed to them. So I don’t think it’s really an issue with this era, it’s just a generational thing.

Right off the bat, I could think of Hack Kincaid and that’s not a white knight character at all. I find him really interesting. Isobel and Ronan Carlyle are really fun. Going back, Haya Tetsuhara, is a really great character. Let’s see. Danai. The thing about Danai is that that’s not a brand new ilClan character. That’s going back to Dark Age where we get some of the filler or straight-up unlikable characters, and Danai just stands out there. 

I’m just kind of going around the clock of the Inner Sphere. Really could get behind Stephanie Chistu, if you go to Terra. She is a really interesting character. She’s not a villain, she’s not a white knight, and I look forward to seeing more of her.

I could go on with the list, but I think the bottom line is read the ilClan fiction that’s coming out and you will find these heroes. There are some in the wings that we haven’t gotten to see fiction yet that I’m really excited to see. The standout there is Abdoun Ricol—there are writers lining up to write for him. There is the ilClan-era Bounty Hunter, who has not yet been introduced, but we have that story. The heroes and anti-heroes and villains are all there. I think it’s more of giving it a chance. Instead of, and no offense intended, instead of just reading it on Sarna. Go and dig into the fiction and see what’s there.

But if you have Sarah Regis listening, you’ve got one story on her. How much do you have on Victor? Lots and lots. You have to give it a chance. 

Sean: Do you think it’s actually that we have a lot of potential heroes, and we’re just trying to see which one of those bubbles to the surface of the fan base?

Ray: Yeah. 

Aaron: Remember too that hero is subjective, as is crazy person, right? Like, somebody would look at Hack and say, this is the action of a crazy person. He’s taking an entire mercenary unit in this Wyatt Earp vengeance ride kind of thing. You could point at almost any of the characters from a certain point of view they’re either crazy or heroes, and I think that’s what we want to get back to.

Sarah Regis is a great example of that, as we talked about with the authors. This is someone if you’re a resident of Arcturus, she’s a hero. She’s the hometown girl who came back and protected the planet when no one else could. If you’re a member of the Estates General or the Lyran social general structure, she’s a maniac. She took an entire RCT and went off the rails with it. Like, my god, she’s insane. But she had her motivations, and that’s a character in Craig’s books and in the sourcebooks we’ll see struggle with that. She did a very terrible thing for a very good reason and has to ask herself, am I now a bad person? Am I a hero? Does it not matter? 

So that’s that kind of stuff we want to get back to. That’s always been a hallmark of BattleTech. There are only a few examples of objectively crazy people in the setting and they’re all problematic and a long time ago and known to be problem. There will not be another Max Liao type of character who’s a just crazy. Or even a Master kind of character who’s just crazy, but a little higher level, a little more functionally crazy. It’s not the way we think of these characters. 

Sean: Yeah, I always found The Master to be a little bit of a one-dimensional villain. 

Aaron: Yeah, very arch. He’s literally cackling as the missiles rain down. What do you do with that character to make him compelling? I don’t know, he throws more missiles? 

Ray: Because we never really got any Jihad fiction. Behind the curtain, The Master is a fascinating character, a really interesting character. And we should, someday soon, be able to get a glimpse behind that. Without that, he absolutely appeared to be a cartoon villain. 

Aaron: There is Jihad fiction in the works to go back and try and create the spine novels that it never got. I’m hoping that turns out as well as we hope.

Ray: And to Aaron’s point, you read the Elements of Treason trilogy and A Question of Survival, you have protagonist and antagonist in those stories, but you don’t necessarily have a white-hat hero and a black-hat villain. Really, it depends on the reader to see where they fall in that struggle. And like Aaron said, that’s something we’re purposely trying to get back to. 

Sean: What’s up with the Home Clans? Are we gonna hear from them again?

Ray: Odds are we will hear from them again in the future. That said, the reason that they haven’t come back yet is there’s no interesting story there. There is some demand; people have factions back there that they’re interested in. I do as well, but there is just no interesting story.

It’s sort of like how the Golden Century wouldn’t have been a fertile place for stories while we were in the Third Succession War. If there’s no conflict, why do we care what’s going on out there? The focus isn’t there. So why do we go back and focus on the homeworlds? That’s what needs to be answered. Why? What interesting things can we say with them?

Aaron: So many of the ideas we get are just a variant of the Clan Invasion: Part 2 or Task Force Serpent. So you have to answer that question Ray just asked without using any words that make me think we’re invading one way or the other.

Well then we won’t invade, we’ll just do a Homeworlds-only story that has nothing to do with the Inner Sphere. And you’re into his other question, okay, why? It has to be so compelling—and I mean compelling, like without debasing the setting with aliens or something.

So we’re not invading the Inner Sphere. They’re not invading us. We have to have conflict in the homeworlds. That isn’t the Wars of Reaving ‘cause we’ve already done that, and it can’t be aliens. Once you start putting up guardrails, even very basic ones, it gets hard. 

I worry that we’re at a place with the Home Clans—people won’t like me saying this, sorry, Ray—I worry that we’re at a place with the Home Clans where we are with the Minnesota Tribe. We’ve stopped answering that question, or rather, we answer now only in terms of any answer we give will be wrong to some significant portion of the fan base. So we don’t answer. We’re just not going to go down that road. Anything we say will be unsatisfying, so we’re just letting it lie. That’s easy with the Minnesota Tribe, ‘cause there’s been pokes at conspiracies and answers and other stuff.

The Home Clans I worry are entering that territory where any answer we give to them will be unsatisfying and wrong to a pretty significant part of the fan base. So anyone listening or reading, it has to be like the best idea we’ve ever heard to have us do something and not “Oh, I’ve an interesting variation on Task Force Serpent.” It’s got to be something that makes me literally sit up. 

Ray: It’s kind of a long answer and Aaron and I could go even further, but it’s because it has been discussed. It’s been discussed to death. We haven’t forgotten about them. And as a reminder, it was sort of handed to us that they’ve been quiet for 80 years or so. Nobody’s had contact with them. 

We’re focusing on the Inner Sphere, and we’ve moved 15, 20 years from that point in Dark Age. We will probably see them again someday, but it needs to be fun and interesting.

Sean: For now they can just have another Golden Century and we’ll just not talk about it because it’s kind of boring. 

Aaron: And we’re going back with fiction to fill in some of those stories. You may have noticed, Randall’s last Founding of the Clans novel carried a Clan Homeworld symbol. John wants to do more in the home worlds, but not post-3085.

Sean: It’s a big year as BattleTech celebrates its 40th anniversary. We’re expecting a big party. Do you have any big plans that you would like to announce here?

Ray: Release a Kickstarter. 

Aaron: That’s a terrible answer, Raymond. 

Ray: For the 40th anniversary, we started to work on planning for the 50th anniversary. 

Sean: Okay. I love that. Building up the half-century. 

Ray: We don’t ever hit the nail on the head. 

The Mercenaries Kickstarter is gonna be the big thing this year. Once that’s fulfilled, you’re gonna see all that goes into the market. But we will have merchandise celebrating. We don’t have some big new product to unveil. We’ve announced pretty much what we’re going to see this year. The Star League ForcePack is kind of our focus for the 40th.

Aaron: I think Universe is a big deal. I think it’s the setting book we’ve needed for a long time. Sort of the flip side of what I said a minute ago, where we don’t announce things that are vaporware.

People ask all the time, “But tell me what’s real, what’s really coming up next.” The downside of being informed is that you can’t be surprised. We don’t have these great moments of revelation or anything like we used to, and that’s a good thing because it means we’re not way out in front of our skis, but Universe is a big deal.

The two re-skinned box sets, Beginner Box and Game Armored Combat. One nugget that we haven’t announced anywhere, is in the Game of Armored Combat, there’s gonna be a small additional insert, that’s ilClan-era focused. It’s the same minis in the box, but it’s the Rec. Guide variants. The ones that are the wizzywig ilClan-era boxes. It’s got a short primer edition. It brings you up to speed on the old Clan era. Both are a reason for people who already own that box or bought six of them to maybe check out this one or give it to a friend. With or without the insert is up to them.

We’re trying to celebrate the 40th by really reinforcing what’s new, where we’re at, what’s coming, and not totally mine the history.

Sean: Ray, you mentioned there’s another Kickstarter coming, maybe. You’ve had the Clan Invasion, you’ve had the Mercenaries Kickstarters, both of these were huge successes. Is it safe to say that these kind of big blowout product releases are going to be done via Kickstarter going forward?

Ray: No. 

Sean: No? 

Ray: That’s not destined. We’re not working towards the next Kickstarter yet. There won’t be a Kickstarter for BattleTech this year. But we are discussing doing smaller, focused ones, non-miniature Kickstarters. We have other games for the BattleTech IP in development that may go the way of Kickstarter. Aaron pitched something brilliant that I think would work for Kickstarter, but it’s not happening this year. So to say that the next Kickstarter would be something like Clan Invasion or Mercenaries, that’s not guaranteed. 

Aaron: We’ve learned our lesson, I think. Or at least, certainly Ray and I have learned it, and I think I can speak for the rest of the team, too. These big Kickstarters are very exciting, they generate a ton of enthusiasm for the brand, they generate a ton of money, but they are almost debilitating, and there’s somewhat of a diminishing return. 

Obviously, that did not play out with Mercenaries, but to Ray’s point when you asked him about favorite ‘Mechs, we’ve already hit a lot of the big ones, so you’re trying to get people hyped about an increasingly smaller popularity base for some of these minis. I think it makes sense to start to transition towards something more sustainable where we’re getting like booster-sized Kickstarters. Things that will get a little bit of excitement, but we’re also keeping in mind a more normalized production schedule.

You asked about ilKhan’s Eyes Only. As much as anything, that was sacrificed on the altar of the Mercs Kickstarter. And I know people don’t like hearing that because they say, “Well I didn’t, I bought into the Kickstarter at a level I was comfortable with, where’s my other stuff?” But there’s not two teams doing it, so things end up getting re-prioritized.

When I said debilitated a minute ago, that’s what I mean. People are excited for the minis, but the books are a different thing in their minds. And they go, “Okay, I got these minis coming, where’s the next timeline book? I want to know what happens next.” And that answer gets delayed because we have to make a mountain of Kickstarter products.

Did I say too much, Ray? 

Ray: No, no, it’s just, you know, it all depends. Some people aren’t necessarily happy because they’re not interested in that product. They want this other product that’s been delayed, and sometimes in development and production, one thing will take priority and delay something else.

Sometimes one thing has nothing to do with the other. Why would a fourth pack delay a fourth book? Well, it depends on the development going into those packs. Like, my time and Aaron’s time being devoted to that. Our writers who are writing the cards, right? Our production people that are designing the cards and laying them out, figuring out the packaging. A lot goes into every product, even down to one of those four miniature packs. Then there are products that don’t cross over whatsoever. So, what Aaron said is true, but it depends, in the case of the Kickstarter.

Aaron: Yeah, that was a black hole. 

Ray: I’m very, very happy and proud with Universe, but it’s completely wiped from my mind. It’s like I had to dump all that data from my brain until someone brings it up.

Aaron: People, when you read Universe, raise a toast of your favorite beverage to Ray in his memory. Honestly, for a while there, I was concerned the last page of that Remembrance book in the Universe was going to be Ray’s obit. Like, it would have been a literal Remembrance. 

That was, that was one of those books, like, super easy, right? We can work for Sarna, right? We can do this off the top of our heads. And yet, when you sit down and make it, it does become a black hole. Because how much do you give to any particular thing? Randall comes in with his acetate pages and foldouts and it looks glorious, but that adds loads. So, we’ll be happy when it’s a thing. 

Sean: I want to talk about how you decide what goes into a ForcePack. You talked a little earlier about how sometimes these things turn out to be kind of like remixes of ‘Mechs already exist or aren’t as popular. I want to specifically look at the Inner Sphere Pursuit Lance because It’s not a collection of particularly popular ‘Mechs at all. Dervish, Cicada, Clint, Hermes II. I actually love this pack. It’s probably the favorite pack coming from Mercenaries. Because it’s terrible. 

None of these ‘Mechs are great, but I love each of them because they’re bad. Was this pack made specifically for me? Or is there someone else at CGL who actually just loves Bad ‘Mechs? 

Ray: Well, yes. A lot of those weird ones like that I probably fought for, because they have their place. 

Aaron: There’s a question that comes up in Magic: The Gathering. Lest I invoke the name of the card game I also play, but folks ask those developers like Mark Rosewater, why do you make bad cards? Why are there cards that cost too much for a creature that’s crappy or whatever and never gets played?

And the answer is that part of the journey is figuring out what’s good and bad. And when you look at it from our experienced point of view, that we understand the meta such as it is—especially in Alpha Strike where there is very much a meta and competitive play—there are good and bad ‘Mechs. But, like, I didn’t know that when I sat down in 1996 and played a Quickdraw.

And that’s not a bad Bad ‘Mech. I mean, it’s okay. But, you know, I wasn’t sitting there looking at the totality of every mech, at that weight, and figuring out, “Oh, this thing’s not optimized because it doesn’t have this and that.” There was no Master Unit List anyway. 

But when it was the ‘Mechs you had, they were all pewter, that’s what you had the record sheets for out of the main box, you just played them. And, yeah, maybe they weren’t objectively great, or they weren’t “strictly better,” as the Magic kids say, but I think when you look at a pack like that, those were in box sets, like, forever.

They are both bad, but iconic. We wouldn’t not make them, you know what I mean? Like, if we went to three Kickstarters and there was no Hermes II or Cicada, people would look at us funny. 

It’s worth having that stuff because you never know what somebody’s first ‘Mech will be. Hey, maybe there’ll be a lot of Pursuit Lances on the shelves and that will make it everybody’s first ‘Mech. I think that’s the one that’s left at all your game stores because all the hardcore players that picked up the local packs or whatever. But there are reasons to love every ‘Mech, I like to think.

Ray: The process of building out those packs, we could have a whole interview just on that. A lot goes into that. Just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a difference between the packs where we have four or five new miniatures—and which we’ve so far really only done through the Kickstarter—or the packs that supplement different factions, in which case you only get one or two new designs. There’s a different formula for those two, for instance. 

So, how do we choose them? It’s a whole process. Usually, it’s a fun process. Sometimes it’s not. 

Aaron: That’s a case where there’s so many cooks in that kitchen. I said a while ago that I do the writing side. It’s a child of a broken home. I know when it’s time to let mom and dad hash it out. There are plenty of cases where Randall and Ray and Brent will start debating a pack and I’ll just go on mute and listen to it happen because there are strong opinions about for and against almost every selection in a pack down to which variant is the right Atlas to put in. 

We had that discussion two hours ago. What’s the right Atlas to put into a pack? How different is different? Why don’t we do another Atlas here? Are there too many? Will people buy it if they have an Atlas already? Because how many hundred tonners do you run in your non-Steiner lists?

Sean: Moving along, which BattleTech product line do you wish had done better so that we could have more of the things that were in that product line?

Ray: I definitely want to hear your answer, Aaron. So for me, and I think what people might expect me to say is the Combat Manuals, but I’ll use this opportunity to clear the air again, the Combat Manuals did as well as every other product. We were doing at the time was an experiment where we really went all out on the art and design, so they were more expensive than everything else we were doing. So for them to sell like every other sourcebook was not good enough. The expectation kind of was, well, they look 10 times better than anything else we made, they should sell 10 times better, but that’s not the reality. We didn’t have the big blowout of the Kickstarter, whereas now every book we’re producing is better than those Combat Manuals were.

It wasn’t a surprise for me personally that they didn’t blow up, but I was proud of them nevertheless and disappointed that we had to stop at that time. But we’re doing the Force Manuals now. Anybody that already has the Combat Manuals and is aware of what we produce, they’re basically the Combat Manuals.

Force Manuals are the Combat Manuals. We just make absolutely sure, unlike the first time, that it’s clear that this supports BattleTech and not just Alpha Strike, which is what we were trying to promote at the time. These Force Manuals are for all BattleTech, period.

As far as something that I’m disappointed in and wish I continued are those HexPacks. I thought they were a great idea. They weren’t my idea at all, but I was the guy stuck on executing them, and I’m proud of the line. I think it would have been better if it was all new artwork, like the quality of the maps we’re doing now. But the idea of making these modular pieces going along with a map, I thought that it was great and I wish that it had continued. 

Aaron: I guess my answer is—and it’s not that I wish we had done it better in terms that it’s failed, because it’s mostly that it hasn’t happened—is print on demand. I’m always championing POD because it is an unbelievable opportunity, both for the company in a business sense and for the customers and fans. This is one of those ways publishing has changed and we should be doing more with it. The trick is the further back you go, the harder it gets.

Now in the Catalyst era, yeah, we might have a good PDF for it, but even that you can’t just turn over to DriveThruRPG’s POD guys and just have them POD it. It takes some relaying out, and the further back you go, even more relaying out. Any FASA-era book that we’re selling on the website is sliced-up page scans. So, to remake that book in POD is hard, but we’ve been restricted by our layout bandwidth. Dak is one person, and he’s asked to do almost everything for BattleTech. We’ve trained up a second layout person, Mark Hayden, who’s come along really well.

What we need is to fix that bottleneck. Once we have more layout people, then it’s all a list of priorities, and unfortunately, POD never gets high enough when there’s only one person doing layout. The idea is that we could have all of the Catalyst books in POD, even the ones that are hard to find—the TRO 3145 and 3150, the Jihad Hot Spots books, the stuff that the secondary market goes for a lot of money.

I’d love to have it all in POD. We have Wars of Reaving, that was a big one. We felt like we could not go into the ilClan era without at least making that one accessible. That thing should not be $80, $100 or more on eBay. It’s such a foundational book and such a great book. And we’ve done other books like House Arano, TRO: Golden Century, and Irregulars that were POD originally.

So there’s a lot of opportunity there. It’s just about the layout bandwidth, getting layout people. If any of you are layout people—I mean like, really layout people with professional experience—make yourself known, please, because we could use you.

Sean: This next question comes from a Sarna staffer and sort of builds on the previous question.  Back in 2015, there were five small product lines announced: Gladiator Gazette, Milestones, OpFor, Spotlight On, and Touring the Stars. Is there work still being put into these lines that we haven’t seen yet? And if so, when might we see them? 

Ray: Okay, so the three that were never fulfilled, the OpFor, Gladiator Gazette, and Milestones; they’re dead. They’re not on the shelf, they’re basically dead, and I could tell you why. 

The Milestones were supposed to be short little scenario packs that delve into some of the mysteries behind the Dark Age. The first few stories had to do with the HPGs, and those were held up because the storyline was held up. That’s really all there is to it. Aspects of those stories will be used, some will not, and ilKhan’s Eyes Only should be the first place where we see some of those little things going all the way back. The developer of Milestones was Joshua Perian and he is the developer of ilKhan’s Eyes Only. So for sure, we’re going to see little bits of that come out there. But as a line, Milestones never took off. So that’s gone.

Gladiator Gazette, the concept was basically just a PDF on a character and their ‘Mech or vehicle and do it like it’s an article in a magazine. Focusing on a Solaris gladiator or something like that. We had ideas we could put in little ads and maybe some short fiction or whatever. The issue there was a lack of interest by the staff. We couldn’t get anybody to contribute. Which is fine because. We wanted to bring back the flavor of BattleTechnology, which we’ve done with the new Shrapnel. In fact, there were at least two other lines very similar to that concept that were never announced, they never got past the discussion pre-development stage. It’s possible you’ll see something like that someday, but the Gazette doesn’t exist. 

Now, OpFor was supposed to be focusing on a Lance Pack—how do you use a Lance Pack, and how do you fight against it? Something focusing on a small scale to support those products. So that kind of was put on hiatus when the Lance Packs didn’t do so well. It had come up again with the ForcePacks that we could revisit this model, but it never picked up steam to develop that further than the basic concept. So it was hitched to a bandwagon. 

Aaron: They all got superseded by something. I mean, these PDFs, including the ones that still exist, were all generated at a time when the line wasn’t producing as many books as it once did. It was in that kind of era between Era Report: 3145 and ilClan. Wasn’t much coming out, so the PDFs were to keep something BattleTech coming out so the line didn’t just die.

Like, when it’s one book a year and a limited number of miniatures, what would you say you do here? All three of the products Ray mentioned essentially got superseded by something. Gladiator’s Gazette got superseded by Shrapnel. OpFor got superseded by the ForcePacks, especially the ForcePacks that are fluffed to a particular unit, like the mercenary unit packs, stuff like that.

Milestones got superseded by the timeline moving again. We didn’t need to pick at the edges of the Dark Age era when we could just make sourcebooks again—an ilClan book happened and off we went. I will say the two that you mentioned—Touring the Stars, Spotlight On, and I’ll throw in Turning Points—do have a role to play in the Brush Wars products that are going to be coming out this year, finally. We’ve revisited the two Brush Wars sourcebooks as a PDF series that will be collected in POD. Installments of three in a season, as we call it. Each one of those installments will be a FASA-style sourcebook; meaty text-heavy, look at a particular brush war that hadn’t been on screen much.

And each one of those installments will carry with it a spotlight on a Turning Point and to Touring the Stars. It’s to fold those PDFs back in a way where they’re supporting stuff instead of just being there. I mean, Josh did great work on them, and the writers and artists that worked on them, but they were kind of random planet X and they were tied entirely to how interesting that planet was. And while we have 2,000 planets, some of them are Dustbowl 342—they don’t all have wacky physics or long sordid histories. Some of them are just a planet to fight on. BattleTech as Wiseman intended, right?

To get them to be part of a holistic kind of strategy is great. And to make sure they’re going to keep happening. The ones that exist are not going anywhere. They’re part of our plans.

Sean: BattleTech has a kind of unique history amongst sci-fi universes in that it hasn’t seen a lot of retconning and it has never really been rebooted. And that’s incredible, especially when you accidentally nuke one of your beloved mercenary companies. 

But if you could reboot or retcon anything into the established canon, what would you change or do differently?

Ray: I got to think about it. 

Aaron: He’s deep in it. Y’all can’t see this in print, but he’s deep in the tank on this one. 

My answer is simple: coms range and jump ranges. Ask any sourcebook writer who has ever tried to figure out how long it takes to get from one place to another and had to have their work rewritten or even dumped because it can’t happen.

Especially the communications thing—obviously it’s newer and goes to the Dark Age, but It adds an extra layer of complexity. Bad enough when you’re trying to move a unit a great distance and you have to say, “Well that battle can’t happen then because it takes six months to get there,” or something crazy.

Now on top of that, you’ve got comms that are inconsistent, so you have to figure out how fast would word spread from point A to point B and if there are trade lanes between them, like how commonly do JumpShips pass through. Funny enough, Mike Miller—I’ll shout out our resident astrophysicist— has pointed out that the Blackout wouldn’t be that big a deal because of the number of JumpShips and the way word would spread. It actually would not be that noticeably different.

We thanked him for his hard work, don’t get me wrong, but we need to make it feel like the Blackout is something worth going away. So this, that’s my answer.

I think I understand why the setting was done that way. It could feel more like one lance on one world can make a difference. You can’t just call the entire rest of the AFFS down on one planet. There’s no Starfleet that can just bamf into existence around whatever planet. But practically in making these books, I know how much Tylenol I’ve had to pop.

Rock and a Hard Place-—recent novel by Bill Keith, the missing Grey Death novel. He and John—and I think Ray, you were in some of that too—had to absolutely go to the mattresses to figure out how Grayson and company could have that adventure in Wheel. How could they get there between Mercenary’s Star and Price of Glory? There was this specific day it had to happen for there to be plausibility; they could have gotten transit time in, transit time out. Like that kind of stuff. I refuse to believe any BattleTech fan is excited about that. They accept it, maybe, but I can’t believe that dads are bouncing their 10-year-old on their knee going, “All right, son You’re gonna learn all about a Command Circuit now.” Is this what excites you or is this just what you’re tied to? Because they’re different things and that’s something where my god if we… They played around super jumps in the Jihad era, they’ve played around with other ways, I guess misjumps famously, but I would retcon that. I would find a middle ground.

It doesn’t have to be Star Trek where somehow you can see people up ahead at warp. But it doesn’t have to be Star Wars, as Schmetzer once said, where everyone can hop in their Toyota Corolla and reach atmosphere. But like, split the difference a little. We went too far into the math side of things.

Alright Ray, you’re out of time. What’s your answer? 

Ray: Well, I wish I had something simple like that to point to. I’m just looking at things in the storyline that maybe I wasn’t happy with. Actually, there was a huge retcon with the whole Unseen thing during FASA that then they took all the Star League ‘Mechs and suddenly, well no, they were here all along. If you’ve come into the game in the past 20 years, you have no sense of that, and who cares? But for me, that’s like a wound that still sits there. That was a huge retcon, you know?

But if I had to retcon something, and this is a little nebulous, but BattleTech had this feel of the medieval world, the fall of the Roman Empire with sci-fi superimposed, and that was a huge draw to me. Tied in with that was the fact that a lance on a planet can make a difference. And we quickly moved away from that in the Clan Invasion, where we talk about regiments and battalions clashing, multi-regiments, and all this. And yet we still try to balance and say, well the other is still true.

The issue there is at the core of the game, we don’t really play at that scale. The stories that we like to tell aren’t really at that scale. There’s been a disconnect, and we’re trying to solve that now with the fiction and the lore. But I still to this day wish that we didn’t jump away from that.

Especially without a really good explanation for how we went from this was my great grandfather’s ‘Mech to where this is just what was assigned to me, and so it blows up and we get a new one. It’s something pervasive about the way the setting has changed.

Aaron: That’s where Tamar came from, right, Ray?

Ray: Yes. 

Aaron: Tamar was Ray’s idea from the Hinterlands. That was 100 percent from the start, what you wanted to see happen. I think anyone wondering where that came from, you just got the answer. It’s that feeling that something like the Tamar Pact can’t easily replace ‘Mechs, they have to be judicious about the battles they pick.

You know, a company on a world is going to make a big difference. It’s gonna be hard to dislodge them. We tried to lean into the fact there’s not a lot there and not just immediately fill that vacuum with Galaxies of Hell’s Horses crashing across the border. That’s one of the common criticisms is why didn’t the Hell’s Horses just steamroll that part of space? And some of the answer is that. It’s holding them off, not because we hate the Hell’s Horses, but because you’re not gonna put—I mean, maybe an Alpha Strike—you can’t put a couple of Galaxies on the table next Saturday and play it out. 

Sean: Even in Alpha Strike, that’d take a long time.

Aaron: Yeah. 

Ray: The ultimate goal is fun. Fun games, fun stories. 

Sean: Speaking of fun games and fun stories, what is your dream BattleTech product? Has it been created? Is it in the works? Or is it still on the drawing board?

Ray: Yes, it’s been created. I’ve had several dream projects and they’ve been done one at a time. The Unibrick book. The Universe book is a long time in the making. The Alpha Strike box set, right? The Force Manuals that’ll be coming out this year. 

It’s been happening. I don’t say this publicly too often, Aaron knows this, but I could point to a document from 10 years ago that I wrote and point to the Kickstarter and say, look, it’s happened, we did it, you know?

As far as products to come, the MechCommander’s Handbook. It’s in development now, writing hasn’t started. The way it is in my head, this will be the new narrative playbook for BattleTech. If you go back to the beginning of BattleTech, when the Mercenary’s Handbook was first introduced—forget about the 3055 one and all the generations that came after—but when this was first introduced, it was huge. That is what the goal of the MechCommander’s Handbook is: a narrative playbook for creating and running campaigns. 

Other than that, someday I’d love to tell a couple of stories in my head. I’m not an author, so I don’t know how I will ever see them on the page, but that’s about it.

Aaron: I think what Ray’s getting at is because he’s a Line Developer, the joy of being Line Developer is you get to make a lot of your dream products.

Now, we have Randall and Lauren to answer to, obviously, who are both very invested in BattleTech, to say the least. But Ray and I guess myself, we’re able to pitch these things, and we generally are on the same page. There’s always some nuance, but the dream products get made.

Whoever’s next will have their dream products that they get to make. But for me, the thing coming up is the new Total Warfare—and we’re not gonna call it that, but I’ve shorthanded it that way. The realignment of the core books is something that Keith Hann is gonna lead. We break them on the MechCommander’s Handbook, but to realign those core books and do for Classic BattleTech what Alpha Strike has with Commander’s Edition…Doesn’t mean we’re going to do one book, but that there’s going to be people who look at the BattleMech Manual as this great tabletop reference, the book you bring to games.

We can bring order to chaos. We can create a core line that makes sense; that’s fewer books, that still has the same content for the most part, but makes sense. A single book that Total Warfare once was when there was no BattleMech Manual, when there were not as many other core books. That project excites me because, you know, I still love Classic. I’m so happy to see Alpha Strike take off too. It’s been around for a quarter of BattleTech‘s existence, I like to remind people. Oh, the new Alpha Strike thing? It’s been around ten years—that’s a quarter of BattleTech‘s history, right? It just wasn’t doing anything for a long time because it took miniatures to unlock the full power of Alpha Strike and let it be what it is now.

But Classic is not dead, it’s not going away. I ride for it, and I think there is a way to make the core rulebook line more accessible, more engaging, to bring the layout stuff that we’ve learned from BattleMech Manual and other rulebooks into Total Warfare (because it was laid out almost 20 years ago).

To do that for the Classic players out there would really be great. I’ll be playing BattleTech probably the rest of my life. That’s a book I could see using for a very long time. So to get the chance to help make it is a dream. What more can you ask for in this kind of war? 

Sean: Alright, that’s the last of the real questions, and now we’re going to move on to questions cooked up by some of our zanier Sarna staffers (of which I may or may not be one). 

To start, we all saw Randall’s epic collection during the anniversary video. If you could steal anything from it, what would it be? 

Ray: BattleDroids. Not even close.

Sean: That was a quick one. We’re gonna continue on the questions I asked for Brent. Which five writers slash developers would you pick to fill out your six-a-side soccer team to play against Brent’s team of artist all-stars?

Aaron: Specifically soccer?

Sean: Yeah. Or football for our European friends. 

Aaron: Um, I imagine Johannes has probably played more than anyone else, being European. Uh, I gotta think if we have any—I don’t know if anyone else played. 

Ray: I don’t know.

Aaron: I’d pick you, buddy. 

Ray: That’s a mistake.

Aaron: This is great ‘cause now Brent’s gonna feel like his artists and all are the real jocks here. And meanwhile, the reality of it is that none of us are. Probably. If we’re playing FIFA, like, if it’s a video game, then you might have a shot. 

Sean: Except it’s not called FIFA anymore.

Aaron: True. So that’s four. We need two more. Might sub in my eight-year-old. She did win her championship. 

Ray: Sure. Proxy Aaron’s daughter. 

Aaron: We need ringers. Do you think we could make our associate developer for Europe and Asia Lionel Messi or something? You think Leo would do it? 

Sean: I mean, if you pay him. 

Aaron: “Great, what’s BattleTech?” I don’t know, but here’s a check. “Okay, I love BattleTech.” Great, that’s what I like to hear. 

We’d find a ringer. We would find a Shrapnel writer who was like a Division 1 player in college, or we’d find somebody who was like a scholarship soccer player somewhere in the Shrapnel ranks. There must be. I refuse to believe there’s not anyone who’s never played club even. We’ll find a Shrapnel raider TBD. And if not, we’ll make John do it. 

Ray: John’s a big guy.

Aaron: The first slide tackle kills any of us, so it’d be a short game. I’d never get back up. 

Sean: Alright, and last one. Over the years we’ve seen tripod mechs, we’ve seen Quad ‘Mechs, we’ve seen ‘Mech-vehicle hybrids, and even animal-themed ‘Mechs, but is it time for an April Fool’s crossover product combining two amazingly popular franchises in BattleTech and My Little Pony to give us BattleBronies?

Artist’s mockup of potential BattleBronies. These are not official. No, you can’t get them, and I won’t share.

Ray: Battle. Bronies. Battle Bronies. BattleBronies… How about this? No, but, keep an eye out next April first.

Aaron: Oh, that’s right. I keep forgetting that’s a thing.

Ray:  And I have to check, but there may be a poem or two in there. 

Aaron: Shout out to our fact check director, Eric Salzman, who on April 2nd of last year had the idea for the product that will be out on April Fool’s Day this year. It’s already laid out, and it’s the epitome of what I always say is that not every BattleTech product has to be for me. The good part is this is going to be free or almost free, so I don’t have to worry about if it’s something I’d buy. We’ll see what the reception is. I’m sure somebody will love it. 

It feels like I’m dumping on them. I don’t mean to, it’s going to be a good product. 

Ray: It’s going to be a canon product.

Aaron: Yes. Basically, yes. 

Ray: I wanted to throw something in out of left field before we wrap up. Another product is coming out this year: Hot Spots Hinterlands, which would be the start of a new line of products. It’s not a scenario book. It’s a campaign book, but not like the Tukayyid book. You’ll be able to take your own mercenary group and play around in the Hinterlands. Think something like the old original Hot Spots where you’re gonna be presented with situations and contracts to accompany them.

It’s built to go hand in hand with the Mercenary box. Hot Spots Hinterland will provide the structure build forces and set them up to play a full campaign or just a build one off from a contract. 

That’s about to go into layout. I’d say production, but it’s not physical production. The writing is edited and ready, the artwork is done, and I think it should be a really interesting product. I just wanted to remind everybody that’s also on the billet. 

Aaron, did you have anything you wanted to add?

Aaron: Just as I always do, to thank our contributors, our development team, our associate developers, as we call them: Keith Hann, Joshua Perian, Joshua Franklin, Eric Salzman, Johannes Heidler, and our line editor, Mark Riggleman at the top. But really, it’s everyone. We are genuinely grateful and blessed to work with great people.

Like we were saying earlier about the pipeline, part of the reason the pipeline jams up is these folks are so good at so many things. We call on them to do a lot, and they all do it for love. They also do it for pay, but the love that they show makes some of these products that would just otherwise never be.

Have you ever looked at a product in the last few years of BattleTech and thought: I never thought I’d see this, I never thought they could do this? It’s due to our team that we could. We have ideas, they get the work done. They’ve truly made some impossible things come true. 

If you see them, thank them at cons. And certainly, I thank them every chance I get for what they do. 

Sean: Well, that’s it for me.  Thanks so much for doing this interview. I know it went a lot longer than I expected. So thank you for sitting down and talking to me.

Ray: No, thank you. Anytime.

Aaron: I was gonna say, sorry if my presence made it a lot longer, I do apologize, I wasn’t intending to make your job harder.

Ray: Not at all. Look, one of the great things about Aaron is he can take what I say in 20 minutes and cut it down to two sentences, concise and precise. I really appreciate and treasure Aaron. Thank you for joining me on this. 

Thanks so much to Ray and Aaron for agreeing to talk for so long about the game we all love. This was a fun interview, and you can expect more in the very near future.

And as always, MechWarriors: Stay Syrupy.