It’s September, and you know what that means. I’ve been planning on what to do with my grey pile of shame. It has grown exponentially since receiving my Mercs shipment (apologies for the brag to many of you who still haven’t received yours) and so I’ve been deciding on what units to insert each of these ‘Mechs into. I’ve settled on Sea Foxes, Magistracy of Canopus, and two custom mercenary units, one of which will be composed entirely of bad ‘Mechs.
Naturally, it’ll be called The Bad ‘Mechs Company, “Where dirty deeds get done cheap.” So long as those deeds don’t involve too much combat against somebody who has decent ‘Mechs at their disposal, or even some functional field guns. Anyone who wants to doodle up a unit insignia, please reach out.
As usual, we’ve got a ton of BattleTech news to cover, so let’s get to it!
Born Of Ice And Fire
I missed this one in August but felt it was too good to pass up for September. It’s a digital painting by Dragan featuring two Ebon Jaguars advancing alongside battle armor and AeroSpace support. Combined arms weren’t historically a Clan thing, but I hear that’s no longer the case in the ilClan era. Kudos for this brilliant piece, Dragan.
MechWarrior 5: Clans Gets New Character Trailers, PC Gamer Feature, And Delayed Two Weeks
We’ve got some new character trailers! Two more members of the Smoke Jaguar star arrive with Ezra (played by Russell Lee) and Mia (played by Alia O’Shea). Ezra seems to be the group’s conscience, even going so far as proposing the deposition of a commanding officer, likely to prevent some civilian massacre that we can all likely guess at. Mia, meanwhile, is your typical Smoke Jaguar: fierce, fearless, and ready to challenge officers to a Circle of Equals to get what she wants.
We have at least one more Star member left, and then it’s time to play MechWarrior 5: Clans. Unfortunately, that date has been pushed back slightly. Rather than releasing on October 3 as planned, the new release date is October 17 (or October 16 at 5 PM PT).
“Countless times over my career when shipping a game, I have had frustration thinking, ‘If only we had a couple more weeks to polish,'” wrote PGI president Russ Bullock on Twitter. “Well, this time we said we are taking it. I feel strongly this is our best game ever and I simply could not see it go out in an unpolished state.”
I’m personally totally on board with a delay. Too many games are released as broken wrecks; it takes weeks or even months of patches before they’re playable. Those who purchased the game on release leave bad reviews, hurting the game’s profitability in the long run. Yes, you might turn things around with constant support, but wouldn’t it have been better to have released a good game from the start?
Finally, we got some previews to talk about. PC Gamer has two articles, one which doesn’t show us anything new, and another with screenshots of cinematics and character skills. It looks like players can choose which skills to level up by spending XP, and each character has its own unique set of skills. Liam, for example, has electronic warfare, missile cooldown, and lock-on time, while Jaden (the player character) has energy range, missile cooldown, and ballistic cooldown. Both have melee, evasion, and handling skills. One suspects these skills are set and cannot be changed, but we’ll have to see when the game releases.
Xboxera, on the other hand, provides us with a video preview that reveals some of the radio chatter between Jaden’s lance and Smoke Jaguar command. I’m happy to see fully animated portraits and voice acting that show way more emotion than MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries. The reviewer did have some criticisms for the game’s sound design, friendly and enemy AI, and game balance, but that might explain why PGI decided to delay the game by two weeks. We’ll see on October 16/17, depending on where you live.
And in case you were wondering; if MechWarrior 5: Clans is as successful as MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, we can expect a bunch of DLC to trickle out in the years to come. That’s according to publisher EG7’s interim report, which we can credit BoukObelisk for digging out.
PAX West Showcases Upcoming McCarron’s Armored Cavalry Box Set
If you want four PPCs on your Awesome rather than just the usual three, or if you want a Tian-Zong, then this is the box you’re probably most interested in. In addition to the Awesome 9Q (or Awesome C, if you prefer) and Tian-Zong, you’ll also get a new sculpt of the Black Knight and a jumping Starslayer. Both are something that any ComStar Acolyte would love to own. And thanks to PAX West, we now know what these new sculpts will look like.
We still don’t have a street date for this box, but we do know it’ll be a Barnes & Noble exclusive and it’ll be here sometime in Q3. Expect a $30 price tag when it arrives.
Submissions Open For BattleTech Pride Anthology 2025
Earlier than usual, the team behind the BattleTech Pride Anthology has decided to open submissions for next year’s publication. The 2025 Anthology‘s key themes will be “Clans,” “ilClan,” “Chalcas or Dark Caste,” and “Solahma.” So a very Clan-focused Anthology this time around.
I’m most interested in the Dark Caste side of things. There’s a lot of potential to tell stories on the fringes of Clan society, those persecuted for not wanting to live in such a militaristic culture or just wanting to live free of constant combat and an oppressive caste system. There are tons of parallels to be drawn between LGBTQ+ persecution and the persecution faced by the Dark Caste, which is routinely hunted simply for not adhering to Clan doctrine.
Submissions should be between 4,000 to 6,000 words and be in a manuscript format. Submission deadline is April 2, 2025. Submissions should be sent here. For more details, check out the official submission guidelines here.
What Have Borders Given Us?
<< This Twisted Game Needs to be Reset >> – Two Visigoth Mercenary Pilots ready for hire.
byu/Sekh765 inbattletech
I love the new Visigoth sculpt. The nose, cockpit, and fuselage all scream Lockheed U-2, while the smaller centerline engines give me F-4 Phantom II vibes. The larger engines on the wings are very Il-28 Beagle, and the forward canards look like they’ve been taken straight off a Grumman X-29. It’s an eclectic mix of Cold War aircraft aesthetics, and I’m all for it.
Then you combine these incredible AeroSpace fighters with an Ace Combat reference, I can’t help but repost it here. Thanks for reminding us of the mercenary way, Sekh765.
Wolves Wave 3 Arrives In MechWarrior 5 As Fans Clamor For MechAssault To Be Reborn
A few updates from our friends at Wolves, the MechAssault fan project that you can play for free right now. First, as we await Wave 3’s inclusion in the proper Wolves download, you can play each of the upcoming ‘Mechs in MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries thanks to the updated Wolves mod. Head on over to MechWarrior 5: Mercs‘ Steam Workshop page or download the mod on Nexus Mods. If you’d like to know what you’re missing, there’s a helpful trailer showcasing just how much damage an Uziel can do.
Our second Wolves update is the release of a short film. It showcases the original Wolves pilot, callsign Apparition, as the commander of the Bleeding Stars. Whether that’s a mercenary unit or an offshoot of Wolf’s Dragoons is unclear, as is why there are so many Ragnaroks on Northwind, but it’s still a powerfully evocative video.
And finally, the Wolves development team would like to remind everyone, BattleTech fans and beyond, that people really did like MechAssault and would love to have it back. That’s not just me saying so; they’ve got a whole video to prove it. Plus a really cool soundtrack too.
If you’d like to download Wolves, head to their website here. And if you’ve got some programming knowledge and would like to bring MechAssault to a new generation, head on over to the Wolves Discord and ask how you can help out.
Well, Running Probably Wouldn’t Have Helped Anyway
What do you do when you get spotted by a Catapult that launches 30 LRMs at you? If you’re on foot, nothing. Just look up and enjoy the fireworks before you’re evaporated in multiple explosions. Thanks to Oqzar for making this quick little animation of two trundling Catapults and one unfortunate cameraperson.
Latest VonBiomes Update Brings Smoother Frames To Gorgeous MW5: Mercs Mod
Important mod update: vonBiomes 20.5 (Public) and 21 (Patreon Early Access) brings back smooth FPS on mission start! All info and link in 1st comment below :)
byu/vonseiten inMechwarrior5
Do you own a current-gen PC with a video card that’s capable of asking AI to generate frames out of thin air? Then the vonBiomes mod is here to make MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries look incredible. More numerous, beautiful biomes are possible on every mission, so long as you’ve got the graphical hardware to run in.
I won’t lie, even my relatively decent rig struggles to make vonBiomes run at an acceptable framerate. I will definitely return to this mod after I get my next upgrade (along with Cyberpunk 2077), but in the meantime, those who are running this mod will be happy to know that the latest version has fixed some first-load framerate issues, so now you’ll be able to enjoy a smoother combat drop. At least, in terms of framerate. You’ll still probably get shot at a bunch, which will be anything but smooth due to the screenshake.
Head on over to Steam or Nexusmods to check out the vonBiomes 20.5 mod, or sign up for vonstein’s Patreon to get early access to version 21.0.
Fan-Made Alpha Strike Game Lets You Battle Without Dice
Alpha Strike the Computer Game (link in comments)
byu/iDeever inbattletech
We’ve already got MegaMek for Classic BattleTech, but what about Alpha Strike? Technically, I think MegaMek can also do Alpha Strike, but it’s not as simple and intuitive as this Alpha Strike fan-made game from iDeever over on Reddit. This proof-of-concept has a limited selection of ‘Mechs, but it works just like Alpha Stike. You start with initiative, then movement, you shoot, repeat.
Each ‘Mech’s heat, armor, and special keywords are tracked in a simple UI, and the randomly generated map automatically keeps track of cover modifiers. This would be the perfect game for mobile (and indeed, a mobile version is in development), but for now, this is just a Windows game. Head to iDeever’s post to download the beta and provide some feedback.
The Junkyard Dog Stalks The Wasteland
There are a lot of phenomenal minis out there, so it takes a lot for me to make note of one here (aside from Ace Combat references, which seem to raise the odds). The Timber Wolf is additionally handicapped from being one of those poster boy ‘Mechs that I’ve had quite enough of, thank you very much.
But then Vote_4_Cthulu gave this one a pilebunker, a rotary cannon, a whole bunch of spikes, and a cool story. That got me on board. Great work, Vote_4_Cthulu. You have my vote.
Mercenaries Shipping Update, Street Dates, And More Products From Catalyst
Some unfortunate news for Mercs backers. While a little over half of backers have received their orders (14,500 out of roughly 27,000), the slightly-less-than-half of you still waiting are getting a little impatient. Catalyst released an update last week revealing where Mercs’ logistics currently stand.
You can read the full update over on Kickstarter, but the summary is that Catalyst discovered some backers were missing items and had to work quickly with both the shipping company and the manufacturer to get those items produced at speed. This has caused some shipments to be placed on hold until the missing items can be produced—about two to three weeks or so. Also, it seems the majority of the missing items were international orders, so if you’re not in North America and are wondering why you haven’t received an address verification email, this is probably why.
Catalyst has also found that some North American shipments that would otherwise have already been sent are pending due to a missing House Arano Challenge Coin. “If your pledge contains this coin, you can choose to message QML to see if that is the only item holding your order,” wrote Catalyst in last Tuesday’s update. “If so, you can choose to have it removed from your order permanently and you will receive a CGL store credit of $10.” You can contact QML at this link.
I’m going to stop talking about what wave we’re on since QML said that we’re on wave six while Catalyst said we’re on wave two. Either way, if you paid for your order after May 17 but before August 12, you should have received an email for address verification on Thursday. QML said 1,200 more orders will be shipped as of September 30.
If you’re upset that you haven’t received your Mercs kit yet, trust me, Catalyst is even more frustrated. Everyone I’ve spoken to has said they’ll never do a Kickstarter this large again because of how massive a pain the logistics have been.
The good news is, should the Kickstarter fulfillment proceed as now planned, we’ve got some street dates to discuss. The Mercenaries Box Set, most ForcePacks, Salvage Boxes, and MapPack: Savannah will be available from retailers on November 27. The Inner Sphere Security Lance, Battle & Fire Lances, and Visigoth Salvage Box will be available alongside Encounters: BattleTech on December 11. Fingers crossed there are no more problems.
Out this month includes Force Manual: Davion, the standard edition of the BattleTech Universe book, and the Mercs Pain Set. Hot Spots: Hinterlands is expected in November, and ilKhan’s Eyes Only should be here in December. Shrapnel #18 is out now with stories from Russell Zimmerman, Giles Gammage, James Bixby, Sam Barrett, and more. We’ve also got Hounds at Bay by Geoff Swift available now, and Heavy is the Head from Philip A. Lee available for preorder for non-Mercs backers (which releases for all October 11).
MechWarrior Online Championship Series Heats Up As Prize Pool Passes $34,000
MechWarrior Online‘s annual Championship Series is beginning to whittle down the cast of players into winners and losers. It’s been a while since I covered MechWarrior Online‘s competitive scene, and rather than even attempt to discuss each team and their various skills, I’m just going to hand things over to Markolai who does a much better job of reporting on the past week of MechWarrior Online matches.
For those looking for a quick way to keep track of who’s winning, check out the tournament website here. My money is on the Potato Carry Society. Not for any particular reason, I just like the name.
MechWarrior Online Announces Bane, Teases Grand Summoner And Commando IIC
Those mad lads finally did it. The Bane, or Kraken if you prefer, is finally coming to MechWarrior Online.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Bane, it’s a second-line Clan ‘Mech that in its standard form comes with a staggering 10 Ultra AC/2s. It also has four machine guns, but 10 Ultra-class light autocannons in MechWarrior Online is more dakka than most other ‘Mechs can ever hope to achieve. Other variants are just as boaty, with the Bane 2 carrying four UAC/10s, the Bane 3 carrying eight LRM-15s, and the Bane 6 carrying five ProtoMech AC/2s, four ER Medium Lasers, and a Targeting Computer.
Of course, the better variants are likely to be the Bane 4 with its twin UAC/20s and three ATM 6s, or the Bane 7 with its paired HAG 40s. The Bane pack is available for pre-order now and ships on November 19. As usual, purchasing singular ‘Mechs for C-Bills is expected, but probably not for several months later.
The Bane is already interesting enough, but perhaps even more interesting are two other ‘Mechs mentioned in MechWarrior Online‘s annual rewards program: the Grand Summoner (or Thor II if you’re nasty) and the Commando IIC. We didn’t get to see what either of these ‘Mechs would look like or what quirks they’d come with, and the Grand Summoner may be just some weird name given to an upcoming Legendary ‘Mech, but there’s no misinterpreting the Commando IIC.
Those who have purchased any Clan Pack, Clan Hero, or Clan Reinforcement Variant from the Premium Packages Pages can expect to receive a Commando IIC and 100 GSP to skill it with on November 19. For more details, check out this post on the MWO forums regarding the annual rewards package.
MechWarrior 1 Apparently Got Japanese Glow-Up In The Early ’90s
I’ve played the original MechWarrior. It’s… a little dated. But you know what might’ve allowed this old dinosaur to keep up in the 21st century? An anime-inspired glow-up. Too bad nobody would be fool enough to—oh what’s this? Japan already ported and remade much of the art in MechWarrior 1 to appeal to local audiences, and it looks way better than the original ever did? Cool.
Turns out, the Japanese version of MechWarrior 1 looks pretty great. I would never have realized it had I not seen this PC Gamer article posted earlier in the month (likely as a lead-up to the big MechWarrior 5: Clans preview they did a bit later). Visuals have improved color depth, the art was all redone by Atsushi Takeuchi of Patlabor and Ghost in the Shell fame, and even the 3D UI sees some fidelity improvements.
But it’s the art that really blows me away. A lot of MechWarrior 1 was just still images as you hop from planet to planet looking for jobs and pilots in dive bars and spaceports, so you stare at them a lot during your journey. Having improved icons, GUI, background art, and animations just makes the game way more appealing visually.
Unfortunately, it’s all in Japanese, so even if you manage to find a version that’ll work on a DOS emulator, you’ll need to either read Japanese or have such a good memory of MechWarrior 1 that you won’t need to read kanji. Still, the article shows a lot of pretty pictures, and I know of at least one person who will probably love the screenshots.
Why Isn’t Everyone Riding On The Nova Cat?
Clan Spirit Cat / Clan Protectorate Nova Cat, by Alan Blackwell
byu/Big_Red_40Tech inbattletech
Previews for Big Red’s upcoming piece on the Nova Cat, as well as the history of Clan Nova Cat, are continuing to be shown on social media. The latest by Alan Blackwell depicts a Nova Cat in Spirit Cat/Clan Protectorate colors wading through a flooded industrial park. For some reason, only one Elemental has chosen to remain dry by riding on the Nova Cat‘s shoulder. That’s the smart one, I suspect.
BungleTech Releases The BungleTest To Quiz Your BattleTech Knowledge
Our dear friends over at BungleTech have a special task for the community over the next month. It’s called the BungleTest, and it’s a multiple-choice quiz that tests your BattleTech rules knowledge. It’s 50 questions and scored based on correctness and time. BungleTech will take the combined results of the BungleTest to discuss on a later episode of the podcast.
You can take the BungleTest by following this link. You’ll have 15 minutes to complete the quiz, and you’ll be given the correct answers after each page (reading them won’t subtract from your time, so feel free to read up on what you missed). As for how I did, I honestly got a higher score when I stopped reading the questions and just picked answers randomly. Look, I play Alpha Strike, okay? Give me some Alpha Strike questions and I might even pass.
Tex Talks Twycross Where The Clans Were First Trounced
In an incredible gift to the community, Tex and the Black Pants Legion have given us a full-length movie-style documentary on the Battle of Twycross, the first time the Clans lost during Operation Revival. It represented a turning point in the invasion where the Inner Sphere first learned that the Clans weren’t invincible and that they could be defeated with some ingenuity and planning. It didn’t last as the Steel Vipers eventually drove the FedCom forces off-world, but it was still the first time any Inner Sphere faction gave any Clan a bloody nose.
I will likely have yet to see this video by the time I post this article. I had a birthday/wedding combo the weekend this video was released, and I didn’t want to watch this veritable film in pieces. I have too much respect for the creators who made it for something like that.
So instead of talking about a film I haven’t seen yet, I’ll share a brief conversation I had with Tex. He told me that not only was this movie over a year in the making, but it was tragically not out soon enough for a dear friend to watch it. He died of pancreatic cancer earlier this year. To honor his memory, the BPL will be airing Turning Point at Twycross alongside a charity fundraising drive for cancer treatment. “Because fuck cancer,” Tex told me.
Be sure to watch this movie on YouTube, set aside some time and popcorn, and bring some cash to donate for cancer research. There’s also some pretty great art you should check out too.
And that’s it for September! Join us again in October when we’ll be celebrating the release of MechWarrior 5: Clans! Or at least, I sure will be.
And as always, MechWarriors: Stay Syrupy.
So the NGNG discord posted some screencaps of the Grand Summoner recently and it actually looks somewhat like a Grand Summoner X33
There are some reasons why the Grand Summoner looks like that in MWO. Most of the PGI devs are busy putting in work for MW5: Clans, so some of the skeleton crew are adding tidbits and reusing mechs to save up on assets. One of the PGI developers, Tiy0s also stated he was planning to use “KU-like” designs for new mechs as longs as the lore states that, “This mech is an upgrade of X” or “Y is a mech create from salvaged X parts.”. So something like the Perseus and Arctic Fox would be doable because they are an upgrade and came from salvaged mechs respectively. Which makes sense in the world of MWO since lorewise most of those mechs have be described as either upgraded chassis or came from salvaged mech parts. Also this might possibly be another reason, but copyright issues. Given that CGL are protective about the revamped art, that could also play into PGI recycling their assets.
If MWO were to actually introduce the Grand Summoner, that would put MWO deeper in the lore than any other battletech game
The Grand Summoner was a product of the early Dark Age, so if it’s being fully cannon to the source material (big if), that would open the doors to all things from the Jihad. Personally would love to see the Legacy, or some other weapons systems like the Plasma cannon or MMLs
So no one looks at the Tian-zong and says “I wonder what the –LEGACY– of that ‘Mech is?”.
For me, it’s an upscaled (due to inferior IS tech) Ebon Jag :P
Well, the best news personally was the BattleTech x Ace Combat crossover, done with the Visigoths, to be honest :D
And about MwO new additions… Bane is what folks would yell “oooh” like for that Sike Meme. Commando IIC is good to have a Clan variant of that little nuisance. And Thor II… Oh boy, it is going to be a game changer, due to being a straight Dark Age Mech. I wonder, how PGI will deal with Improved Jump Jets on Alt. E variant.
Personally I would like to see Project Pueblo “IS-turned-Omni-IIC” Mechs, like Night Chanter or Spirit Walker. I think that it wouldn’t be so difficult to modify existing Crab and Black Knight to OmniMech design, right?
The Clans not being a combined arms force is a common misconception due to their not using conventional vehicles until the post-Jihad era with the exception of the Hell’s Horses. The common Clan Cluster included 3 Trinaries of OmniMechs, 1 Trinary of Elementals, and 1 Trinary of Omnifighters. In fact, it was the Clan Nova formations with their combination of a Star each of OmniMechs and Elementals trained extensively to cooperate with each other that inspired the Capellans to adopt their augmented lances that added vehicles or infantry to a Mech or vehicle lance. Also, as of 3050 the only militaries that used combined arms at the company level or lower were the Clans, Comstar, and SLDF descended mercenary units like the Eridani Light Horse.
” the slightly-less-than-half of you still waiting are getting a little impatient.” Yes, people tend to get that way when they have dropped decent chunks of cash (US$800/AU$1243 in my case) on products to then have the goal posts shifted constantly with little to no reassuring information or ETA’s when they might get what they paid for months on end, or to go from updates saying “all the stock is at the hubs” to nothing is shipping from the hubs cos we don’t have all the stock.
CGL got handed 7.5M and an exact shopping list of items it needed to produce and ship 12 Months ago, then they get half way through shipping and go “oopsie, we didn’t make enough, sorry, poor us we didn’t know” “*quick throw them the trademark 2-3 week line again” so yeah, people are understandably getting annoyed and “impatient”