Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Exclusive Battletech Alpha Strike Cards!

Well now I've done it.  I've produced the FIRST Alpha Strike card, totally canon, ever produced.



Yep, first one ever.  Not even CGL has produced one for the masses yet, which seems nuts since they must have tested the game at some point.... right?

Anyway, this was created with a tool I stayed up too late last night writing.  It is a very simple little tool, and just lets you plug in values, and it outputs the card.  AND I added command line support, so if you have a list of stats, it'll output them without interaction quickly and easily for you!  I did it using the older .NET 2.0 as well, to avoid incompatibilities.

ONE issue though.... anybody know the exact font used or that should be used?  I went with Helvetica but it wasn't a perfect match.  Then again, since this is the FIRST card, who knows?

I'll be available for download tonight, as well the 60 or so cards in the Alpha Strike book.

EDIT:  Nevermind, I made them all already.  Though I need to point to record sheet background art instead of TRO.  I also decided to go from a command line input, which means slow app startup, to an interface within the exe that lets you just copy/paste values from excel.  I'll also add color background support, so you can print cards in the "faction colors" they are in the Alpha Strike book.

Anyway, download link, with the executable, AND a batch file I used to create them (though it'll be useless tonight with the new release):


Not a lot of error checking, and I'm not yet changing the PV based on the SKILL, but all that will be done tonight.  If anybody has the font that should be used these would be *perfect*.

Oh, and also in this batch are the consolidated lance/star and platoon/binary cards, so you can play larger battles!  I did have to add a BIR there, which stands for "battlefield intelligence rating" for the larger units.  They are NOT canon, but all the single units are.

Enjoy, let me know what you think!

ANOTHER EDIT!

Color cards, with miniature pic instead of TRO pic:

And yet ANOTHER update, boy I'm busy today!

Though I still have some work to do, I did find the font, duplicated the outlined text, and found a decent background texture.  However, the canon version still looks better... the rest is going to be much harder to duplicate for me :(

My version:



Canon version:

27 comments:

  1. Lord, I'm so confused as to where Alpha Strike fits into the typography now. so, it's like QS/BF but not the same?

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    1. Ok, here you go:
      Total Wafare: Battletech

      Alpha Strike: Quick-Play Battletech, uses Battleforce conversion methods, though we are still waiting for errata before we can convert Battletech to Alpha Strike. All ranges/moves doubled from the converted statistics, though why I have no idea.

      Battleforce: Strategic Battletech, scales up to regimental sized elements, still totally under development.

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  2. That's a good question Anthony. I'm full in with AS. However, I'm not sure where that leaves QS.

    BF is a different game because of the scale.

    Bad Syntax - there was a card shown on the forums last night, but I'm not sure if it's legit or not. I have the image on my phone. I'll post it up as an entry on my blog so you can see it.

    Itineranthobbyist.blogspot.com

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    1. Quick strike was renamed to Alpha Strike. They *really* should reprint Strategic Operations with that section renamed, or better yet, the whole quick strike section completely removed. Update the PDFs as well.

      Well dang, thats a pretty card too. Doesn't look very official due to the "*BLOOD STALKER" ability, but it was posted by Herb so it probably was. Still, it does look really nice. Wish I had the color template, I could add it as an option to my app.

      It does look like we'll be getting a 90 card PDF for it soon tho, with the 86/90 at the bottom. Or maybe that is just assaults, dunno. Anyway, it does look very nice, and again if I had a blank, I could create 3000 of them overnight ;)

      I wonder if people would prefer a painted miniature to a black and white TRO image?

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    2. Blood Stalker is from the RPG and is a mechwarrior special ability.

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    3. IMO the TRO image looks a lot better when printed.

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  3. We renamed Quick-Strike to Alpha Strike. The name was confusing with the use of Quick Start (the name given to free versions of rules, example BattleTech Quick Start, BattleForce Quick Start, Quick Strike Quick Start was just crazy).
    There will be only one set of BF/AS stats. They will be updated on the MUL soon (maybe a month?)
    Strategic Operations has the BF/AS stat conversion rules. Just as TechManual has the construction rules. If you want custom units, you have to purchase the construction book (TechManual) and the conversion book (Strat Ops), just as you would before. (There's a possibly the conversion rules might show up in a future AS supplement, but it's obviously not here now).

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  4. Ok, this is unrelated, and I am not saying its like Herb and I don't know if it applies to him, but while looking for Herb's facebook profile to find the original posting with that Alpha Strike card, I came across a funny urban dictionary link:

    http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=facebook%20herb

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    1. That's funny. And definitely not him, because I couldn't fun him last night on FB. I was using my FB app and not the full site.

      Did you find him?

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  5. The font is EurostyleLTStd. With the unit name and other bold text being bold, the heat scale numbers being regular, and the rest of the text is demi.

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    1. Thanks!! I made the code changes to support it, and the name doesn't seem quite as dense as it should be:

      http://goodsects.gotdns.com/bte/eurostile.png

      But I'll stick with it. Though I *REALLY* like the colored version, and maybe even B&W versions of those color fonts would look good.

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    2. Hm, if you're using the bold version of the font then the issue might be that it's not the same version of the font that they're using. The font name I listed was the specific font used in the AS PDF. If you have a font called "Eurostyle St Bold" that seems to match up to the font they're using.

      An example of the "Eurostyle St Bold" font.
      http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx30/ph423r/FontExample.jpg

      Colored versions?

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    3. Doesn't look like its the same font I have :( Oh well, not that the font type matters much at all.

      Colored font like those used on the last posting here:
      http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,27880.510.html

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    4. If you aren't against borrowing it I could send the font to you.
      Wow, I really like the full color cards. Though with the metal texture in the bg it's a little too busy for my taste.

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    5. Send away. I probably have it somewhere, I bought a huge font collection (100k or a million or something) a while back and never went through it. I have a battletech font folder with like 70 different eurostile fonts, I added them all, but not sure which I should have picked. I'm no font guru :(

      That color card looked *great*, I loved the color combinations. But I would never actually print it on my laser. I would however, buy them in stacks of 52 with mechs on them, laminated, and durable. Not sure what would be on the back, perhaps just another variant. They do look really good, wish they'd release the template so I could spit out a few thousand of them for you folks.

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    6. Link to download font
      https://www.dropbox.com/s/waocwog27l4eo85/Fonts.rar

      I could put together a color template based off the one on the forum. What specifics like file type and such would you need it to have?

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    7. The one on the forum is great, though I'd also need the background stuff (the metal texture, the black/yellow stripes, and the background of the various boxes) to make it look good.

      Looks like the title, PV, and "ALPHA STRIKE" are all in the "ImpactLTStd" font. I do have a copy of it, but not that is that pretty red with the yellow border. I was looking for a bordered or empty version, as I can easily change colors, but optionally that in font would be awesome. Any help you can provide would be very appreciative.

      I got your fonts, I'll use those in place of the eurostile fonts I have now.

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    8. Here's what I have so far.
      http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx30/ph423r/Template.jpg

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    9. That's awesome! All I need to go is the yellow/black bars in the upper right and lower left. Then I'll have something darned close! Can you do that part?

      I'll work on getting what you have integrated with what I did with the fonts/log a few minutes ago (see the updated pic above)

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    10. How's this?
      http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx30/ph423r/Template-1.jpg

      I've built it in Illustrator. Would you be able to use that format, or would you need the pieces separate?

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    11. Oh thats excellent! I can use illustrator, as vehicles/infantry really don't need the heat block, and maybe I can expand it out to support a "back" with all the crits, and cards for things like warships and mobile structures.

      You can email it to bad_syntax at yahoo.com, and I'll start getting cards printed up before the end of the weekend.

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  6. As I've only played Battletech a handful of times, I am a little surprised that they are releasing Alpha Strike, but there are no cards available for the mechs when you buy the book. Is that right? How do they expect you to play the game, exactly? Are you supposed to transcribe stats by hand out of a list to a 3x5 card? I'm interested in playing a fast, easy version of Battletech, but they aren't giving me the tools I need to go with their $40 book? Just want to make sure of the facts before I make a purchase, as sessions of BT are a rarity for me. Thanks. :-)

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    1. They provide blanks in the book you can copy and fill out with the unit stats - not unlike their full BT sheets in the core games.

      I'm hoping they have more of this stuff together when the hardback book comes out.

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    2. No kidding huh? The PDF does have 1 page with Alpha Strike cards in the back on page 159, 8 of them. They also have a "large" vehicle that doesn't have enough space for, well, even medium vehicles, on the next page (Same size as the regular cards, just no pictures). So you do have the tools to copy that page and fill them out yourself.

      I would have at least thought 7 or so pages with the companies they have in the book pre-filled out. With the hardcover it would have been nice to get nice color cards, kinda like those Herb posted, as a thicker attachment to the back of the book. I really think the book should have been half that size, with the cards, and with big cards for the various tables in the back as well. Keeping it simpler and less intimidating = more customers IMO.

      Oh well, I went and made a bunch of color cards with the miniatures instead of the TRO images. Not as good as Herb's, but different. It'll be up on the page in a few seconds.

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  7. Thanks for the help, guys. I think I may take the risk and get the book. I'd prefer your black and white cards, so if you keep those available, that'll definitely be my first choice. Thanks for all the work you've done already along with the inside info. :-)

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  8. Been having network errors trying to dl the color versions. I am not too bummed about that, but others might be having the same problem

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