In which Mike aten't ded (to quote Nanny Ogg). Also, he gets to have a long (and rather delayed) chat with Aces designer Josh Derksen.

The obligatory useful links:

• Josh's page on BoardGame Geek
• Lynnvander Studios
• A 480p rip of Fang Of The Sun Dougram (you'll need to listen to understand why) - there are probably better quality rips out there.
• Twine - "an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories."
• My interview with Ed Jones and the sadly missed Kendall Leask.

And finally, there's a small prize for the first person to comment and tell me what I messed up when I put all the audio for Episode 15 together...

In which Mike finally gets to chat to Ed from Buy The Same Token about their fabulous AS tokens.

Useful links, as ever:

• the tokens themselves can be found here along with some better photos than mine!
• the BTST discord (this link shouldn't expire)
• the Krita open source drawing software Ed mentioned that BTST use - runs on Mac, Windows and Linux.

I will grab some decent 'posed' token shots when I get back from Germany next week.

In which Mike is back from UKGE, and mostly awake again! Featuring interviews with a bunch of the demo agent team from the show.

Useful links:

• SciFi Trader. Note that this site is in German, but most modern browsers will do a decent enough job of translating if you ask them to, to enable you to sign up, sign in and buy stuff.
• Fortress Miniatures and Games.

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

Useful links:

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

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

Useful links:

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

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

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

Useful links:

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

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

Useful links:

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

All Day game:

Happy New Year!

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

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

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

Useful links:

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

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