But this will be a mega post of mega postage to finish it all up as of what I own as of today.
This here was the second Battletech comic book ever made, a miniseries released right around the same time as the cartoon and Tyco toyline came out. It was by Malibu, which I may have mentioned got absorbed by Marvel. Which got absorbed by Disney. (That also just ate Lucasfilm. I hate megacorporations and so should you.)
The art and coloring were.. ok for a mid 90s comic but its not exactly a spellbinding series in any regard.
They did try a bit of the old crosspromotion in the comic though. I guess in that timeframe comics were actually selling well enough for it to be worth the try..
The issue of PC Gamer with a big article on Mechwarrior Online plus a code for some freebies. And thanks to this big old collection project I even found my Mechwarrior 4 Clan Mech Pak!
Not exactly the best use of my 7 odd dollars (yay Books a Million discount card and coupon!) but I can make most of my MWO mechs red & black, and one can have a Coconut Monkey bobblehead. Which is currently in my Raven and in my zoom mode I just see his head mostly. And it looks like he is having a wank while I am running around the map at 90 odd KPH..
An example page from the article. PC Gamer really isn't worth reading. If it ever really was outside of some of the genre columns they used to have in the mag back in the 90s. Love the MWO redesigns of the classic BT mecha though!
This project has even had me go looking for more stuff in stores! At Citadel Games in Groton I found these two loong out of print books that put me even further on my way to owning a complete set of Battletech novels.
I traded off All Flesh Must Be Eaten (Revised) and GM Screen Kit to get these 4 books above. My friend got em dirt cheap as part of a mega lot. He mentioned interest in some zombie RPGing. I never plan on using All Flesh again so we traded. And now I have 2 of the 5 classic BT era house books, and a book on Comstar from the Clan era. Nice! We both made out!
A little example of the color pages inside the House Kurita book.
OMG COMSTAR MECHA HAVE GONE ANIME!
My Mech Assault tee shirt I think I got for preordering the game. Front has an X Box logo on the chest.
My Battletech hat I got from the Battletech Center in the 90s, and a US Navy styled ballcap someone stationed on the SDF-1 might have worn. Enlisted of course. I work for a living!
I got this sweatshirt free at a Robotech panel at Connecticon a couple years back! Its a Southern Cross sweatshirt. THAT OWNS. I just won't wear it out of fear of damaging it.
This here is a nice plastic case that came with the now long dead Robotech CCG. It was the Macross era starter set with 2 half decks.
Inside we get 2 double sided posters. One side has all the rules, the other is the playmat. I should try the game out one day.
And some card examples, with the card back in the lower middle. Its all screen captures from the show. This was pre "Remastered" edition so they are not the crispest pictures ever.
And now.. TOYS TOYS TOYS! My Mospeada Tread/Beta Fighter, the VF 17 from Macross 7, the Exo Squad version of the Southern Cross ATAC Hovertank, a grunt mech from Orguss, a VF1 with Strike Armor in Gerwalk mode (doesn't transform), and a Battletech Inner Sphere Power Armor unit of some kind. The Top 3 toys are pretty good even if the ATAC doesn't convert to all 3 modes. The Orguss grunt would be cool if the leg hinges didn't break the minute I got it out of the box. But many Takatoku toys did this.
And here we have FOUR Yamato Valkyries and a terrible Bandai VF19 model kit from Macross 7. See many Valkyrie toys don't transform properly. You either have to take parts off, or in some cases even put in replacement parts like that model kit. The 3 up top (VF 11, YF19 VFX2, YF21 from Macross Plus) thankfully don't do that at all though transforming the 11 is nerve wracking. The VF1A at the bottom is sadly a "partsformer" as you see by the little baggie next to it.
The Macross Plus toy boxes so you can see the other modes. I am taking enough photos here. Also unlike later toys these were under 80 bucks a pop. Now the current Valkyries seem to start at 125 and go up.
The Toynami Robotech Mospeada Alpha Fighter. Got it for 50 bucks on sale. Still feel ripped the hell off. It isn't fun or nice at all. They spent more effort on the stupidly fancy book style packaging than they did on the toy enclosed.
Going back to the Yamato figures here is the various modes the VF 1A can do. With parts. And the legs need to be removed and replaced elsewhere. And they fall out if you wiggle the thing. A pity.
And here are the TWO I own. At the time people were clamoring for a transformable VF-1 toy. Now we are enveloped by them and they cost more than the OOP toys we all fought over around then were! One is still sealed and has no yellowing thanks to the sunlight. The left does however have my panel inking which brings out all the lovely detailing that should have already been painted on for a 75 dollar toy.
My Exo Squad released Glaug Officer's Pod (aka Marauder in Battletech) who has sadly misplaced a little grey bit I am sure I will find during this big collection project of mine. It is depressed over that. Also 1996 placed stickers coming off due to age. It is a SAD GLAUG. And the other thing my collection project is doing: GETTING ME TO PUT THIS CRAP AWAY. Poor Gamlin and his VF 17 back in their box. He will have to pine for a 15 year old in silence. (Which I guess beats other characters in that terrible show. She was nearly sexually assaulted. TWICE. WTF JAPAN?)
And my normal Zentraedi Battle Pod with the back of the 17's box so you can see it's other modes. I got most of my Exo Squad Robotech toys on extreme clearance from Caldors in 1996. It started me down the path of toy collecting, a path I am fighting to get myself out of. GROWING UP SUUUCKS!!
My other 4 Mechwarrior Dark Age mailaway figures. The two above still in their shipping container. The bottom 2 in their boxes but opened. I have loose versions of each you have already seen in the 4th post. (Showing two sides of the Liao Incursion LE box.) One of them was done with PC Gamer which as above seems to have some Battletech fanboys on staff...
My 2 (of 3 made) Miracle House Cyclones (Mospeada Ride Armor). Lancer and Rand types. I don't have Scott Bernard's which is mostly the same as Rand but with a different head and weapon system. Sadly they never made a Rook. Another company made a GI Joe scaled series that did but while they were a non parts swapping/moving deal like these, they.. didn't work so well. Another company made a Rand and Scott at 1/12th scale but.. 200 bucks a pop. I am happy with my 50 dollar ones. They aren't great but.. they give me transforming Cyclones.
My Battletech Center card in all its well worn glory, my Takara Die Cast Dougram and Roundfacer (upper outside mechs) next to their Revoltech counterparts, and a gob of "Gashapon" figurines. I love the Dougram aesthetic.
My Takara Roundfacer model assembled. My first purchase from Hobby Link Japan. A rerelease of the models that were also in the Robotech Defenders line? OK I AM NOT MADE OF STONE. Next is another Exo Squad Robotech release of what BTech fans know as the Archer, and a Tomahawk/BT Warhammer kit I built and did a bad arctic camo paint job on.
My two Macross Revoltech figures doing the sorts of wild posing Revoltechs are known for. Under is a Macross Pencil Sharpener blind buy thing. Get the mecha? NO I GET FRIGGIN MINMEI ARGHTBLEFHF. Next is the SD Max Sterling VF1A figure you got with the Game Boy Advance Robotech game, and his baby momma which was a keychain I bought and took the keychain bit off. Same toy but different head.
VF1s from other companies. The left one is great especially after my panel inking. Sadly the backpack broke off because it fell 2 feet onto shag carpeting and I had to reglue it. It is mostly perfect transformation outside of the cockpit heat shield. Luckily the backpack doesn't have to move provided I keep the Strike Armor on it. Might try some "greenstuff" and a little paint to try to fix the broken point so I can properly transform it without worries of the snap point resnapping. The other two (the first one having an earlier panel inking done by me) are also tiny and perfect transformation. But are so small as to be.. kind of crappy. Things fall off or wobble if you touch it. But its impressive they managed something Yamato couldn't in a toy 3 times as big. And they were CRANE TOYS!
And they like 90% of the toys in this post return to their boxes.
And these little guys with pull back motors were some Toynami toys. They also did FAST Pack versions and chrome versions but I just have the original releases. Kinda chintzy but cheap and cheerful.
They vastly improved on them when they did Alpha fighters. More involved transformations, less wobbly. Sadly the rubber on the wheels is all disintegrating. But who cares about something you don't see or use?
In Japan these were part of the "Blockman" toy line. A series of plastic and die cast toy robots with connection holes and pegs you could combine with each other and accessories to make stuff.
In the US Revell released them as ROBOTECH ROBOLINKS. Here is a human pilot and two of the Robolinks with armor parts.
The pilots fit in the cockpits, Zoids style. With bits and bobs you can make robots and vehicles and pack em with guns n such. And they can be pretty posable thanks to the pegs and Robolink figure articulation.
The Force 30 and 31 box, front and back respectively. Nice looking. Shocked this line never did anything because it OWNED. I sadly didn't have one of these middle grade sets. I got one the cheaper level sets as a kid I now don't have. I want all the sets.
Another mid set and one of the "shut your kid up at the store" cheaper sets.
The BIG set I have and all the parts now in the styrofoam tray it came with. This collection project is both sad because I bought all of this silly stuff, but sad because I am putting most of it away after I take photos.
The Robolinks' story from the instruction booklets and how it connects to the Robotech cartoon. (Read: Barely. I think Harmony Gold ignores it entirely now.)
And some Fasa related stuff! RENEGADE LEGION! A game series taking place even further along than Battletech, it is similar in being a sci fi Machine Sheet game but has aliens and the bad guys are Romans IN SPAAACE. I have the tank and capital class starship games.
The only expansion book I have, a sourcebook. It shows the starfighter and RPG games listed on it too as it is really mostly a setting book.
And this is why Renegade Legion didn't do well. It still has the armor that is removed like Battletech but instead its a boxed grid. And different weapons penetrate into the armor in different ways like these punch out templates show. Kind of complicated even if a bit more realistic than Battletech. Next are the nifty 3d box counters the tank game came with (sadly my version of the cap ship was flat counters). Full 3d counters is classy. There were also versions of some of the games with plastic minis. I do sort of like Renegade Legion though. It even had three computer games.
And let's finish this up with the VERY loosely connected Dirty Pair! Why loose? See the mecha in Crusher Joe were in Battletech. Crusher Joe and Dirty Pair are in the same universe, and there are rumors/connections that the redhead Kei, is said Crusher's mom. The Dirty Pair are space Interpol except they got their nickname for the sheer volume of mass destruction they cause.
Awesome comic artist and writer Adam Warren perfected his style with his own Dirty Pair miniseries. Though his DP dress even more scandalously than their anime counterparts. And his universe is more of a Transhumanist future compared to the anime which is typical 80s Japanese sci fi. (The original DP were a novel series and are different as well.)
You can just see from the covers how his style changed to what we now see in his ongoing work Empowered.
Dirty Pair in Japan had TV series and direct to video series. Viz released photocomics of some of this anime in the 90s. Given how 22 minute episodes were sometimes being released for 35 bucks a VHS tape if the shows were brought over at ALL, and 5 bucks to read it in comics form was a good solution.
And the Dirty Pair synopsis from one of the above photocomics, and a couple examples of the screen captures used. (And what half the appeal of Kei and Yuri seems to be wink wink nudge nudge.)
There was also yet another Dirty Pair series called Dirty Pair Flash which was its own setting and timeline, turning our two Trouble Consultants into teenagers (as opposed to the 19 and 20 year olds they are in the Anime, and the post college of Adam Warren's stuff..). I got rid of my VHS tapes because while compared to modern anime it wasn't totally skeevy, there was one episode that came really close. That and the original Anime or Warren Dirty Pair were way better anyhow. I did keep this window cling though. It came with one of the tapes.
And there we have it! Battletech, Robotech, and associated stuffage all photographed and commented upon. Many Valkyries are now boxed up to perhaps never see the light of day until I decide to sell them or something.
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