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Posted 26, August, 2015

Games Coming In September

We just announced Street Dates on some new games and a new book each for BattleTech and Shadowrun. Thought I’d share my favorite parts of each (well, at the moment…they shift as I play them more).

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ooohhh…the tiles…the awesome feel of the Jarl tiles in your hands as you move them around in the bag and position them across the board. It probably took us 6 to 9 months longer to release this game because we didn’t simply go with The Duke’s style of wood…but giving the Jarl its own unique feel in the tiles was worth it all the way.

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More CatBug in Encounters: Bravest Warriors. You can PLAY as Catbug!!!!. Not to mention, both decks include this ridiculously awesome Catbug that comes in each deck! 

The die was so complex to create that the company–who produces hundreds of designs for dozens of companies all over the world–had to create a new “mold within a mold” process to have the two colors mesh smoothly at angles all over the die.

I need an entire dice bag that is just full of these dice!

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There’s always so many great illustrations in a Shadowrun book, it’s usually impossible to pick a favorite. But after reviewing all of those in Chrome Flesh, for me this illustration by Victor Moreno might just be it. 

It embraces those elements that have always been in Shadowrun but that we’ve attempted to ramp up in Fifth Edition: everything has a price. Sure, we can do stunning things to our bodies to run the shadows better…but is it really worth it in the end? 

There so much story crammed into that illustration.

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I’ve been working on BattleTech a long time. Almost 20 years now. And in that time I’ve helped publish…sheesh…some 20 Technical Readouts (including the Revised Edition and Upgrades). And so for me, while obviously I always want to see a cool, new looking design or something that I can put on the table and have fun with, now-a-days the first thing that often catches my eyes is areas where we’re “filling in” the universe.

The Destrier Siege Vehicle from Technical Readout: 3150 fits perfectly in the aesthetic of BattleTech and feels like almost any vehicle Brigade within the SLDF would’ve included a lance. But until recently there were no rules to provide for the use of this (either to construct it, or to actually use the various specialized equipment in a game in a way that matters). The Total Warfare line of rulebooks is a long shot from perfect…I often look at them and think about X or Y I might have done differently. But I still love the cornucopia it provides for every style of player: we’ve a rule for that. And “filling in” the universe to allow players to run in almost any direction and to almost any depth…yeah…love that.

So there ya go…some thoughts on various favorite parts of each book/game…hopefully you’ll see them soon on your local game store shelf and check em’ out!

Randall