The Announcement from Catalyst Games Lab

Well, Catalyst Games Lab finally made the announcement that everyone's been waiting for., You can read the entire announcement here: http://bg.battletech.com/news/news-and-announcements/drop-pod-sequence-initiatedthree-two-one/

Now, for my thoughts:

The Interstellar Operations rulebook has been, along with the recently released; Housebook: House Kurita, has been the company's Moby Dick, refusing to be cornered and harpooned for years. Even after parts were taken out to be included in a new product  the book is still around 400 pages of all sorts of things. Things like era weapons and equipment, rules for building Tripod, Quad-Vees, LAMs, Primatives, and Super-heavy 'Mechs. There are also rules for Nukes, bioweapons, and Chemical weapons too, for those who want them. And there is Strategic BattleForce, an expansion of the BattleForce game system from Strategic Operations, and the rules for a strategic game called Inner Sphere at War.

All in all, it gives any BT fan another layer that they can play with.. It's in Beta, which means you can buy the PDF for $10, look for any problems and report them to the company via the special thread on the official forum.

BTW, the rest of what was to go into Interstellar Operations has been moved to a new product, Campaign Companion, listed Here: http://bg.battletech.com/books/upcoming-releases/, (9th item down)

The next big news: The Iconic BattleMechs that were known collectively as the Unseens are being reimaged. The announcement page has a couple of pictures of the reimaged Warhammer, and them image at the top of this post  has the reimaged Griffin and Marauder. I expect that Catalyst will release the other images, which I've seen refereed to as "Newseen" once their look has been finalized.

And the last item on this list I want to talk about tonight......

The first new physical Battletech Novel in years!

We finally get to have novel-length fiction again. This one is by Jason Schmitzer, but the announced novels to this point include Loren Coleman's complete Shadows of Faith, Victor Milan's Case White, and a trio of Kell Hound Novellas by Micheal Stackpole, two of which have never been published before.

So, it appears the novels will pick up where they left off, the end of the Fed-Com War and the start of the Jihad. I plan to start pitching for a novel as soon as I finish working on the non-BT I am currently writing. I have several novel ideas which I hope I can bring to you the action of the Jihad in a way the Jihad sourcebooks couldn't.

Writing a Battletech novel is going to be a challenge, and its one I'm looking forward to.

There are also going to be new PDF product lines coming out, just check the coming products page from above and I hope you enjoy the new stuff as much as I will!

Later!

Craig