Warhammer 40K: quite glad I don't have the time or money.

[SoupOrMan]

And in other news, I may have tossed out my old Predator model when I was culling my personal items. That sucks.

[Steamforger]

but I was always a Battletech guy anyway.

The fact that you can get by with cardboard counters certainly doesn't hurt, does it?

And I just spent 70 bucks on battletech maps thanks to you guys.

I'm also stripping the paint off of a bunch of 3025-era minis. Some (okay, all) of them desperately need it.

My favorite piece of course, is the Crescent Hawk edition of the Phoenix Hawk LAM that I got for finishing my old Commodore 64 version of Battletech.

3025 was the first tech manual I ever bought, so the era is one of my favorites even if it became technologically outdated rather quickly. I really like the clan 2nd line II-C Variants though. All the classic designs with new and shiny make dead thingys. What's not to love???

[Mike OTDP]

For a while I was a serious tournament level Magic the Gathering player. At peak, my collection was, in theory, worth something like $15,000 (I had been playing since Beta). In total however, I only paid a few hundred. Most of my collection was either actually collected, traded for, or won in tournaments and/or games.

I sold out after the second major price crash, but before the total collapse. I got about $3500 for everything in... 2000 I think?

Another game that I thought was interesting, but degenerated into an effort to sell useless cards by the thousands to players desperately searching for that one trick card that guaranteed victory.

[HTRN]

I really like the clan 2nd line II-C Variants though. All the classic designs with new and shiny make dead thingys. What's not to love???

Them when they run into a Hellstar.

[Steamforger]

I really like the clan 2nd line II-C Variants though. All the classic designs with new and shiny make dead thingys. What's not to love???

Them when they run into a Hellstar.

Oooooo hadn't seen that one yet.

[HTRN]

The Hellstar has a rep as the most dangerous mech ever officially introduced to the game..

Considering that it has 4 PPCs, and the heatsinks to fire them, It theoretically has a 1 in 3 shot of headshoting any mech on any given round.. That is assuming, that the other guy isn't simply pounded into scrap first - 60 points a round will do that.

[Rich Jordan]

Now you have me wondering if I still have the two or three metal Mech miniatures I bought back then; Marauder, Rifleman, and I can't remember the third. I never painted them but had started the cleanup work...

As an aside, Larry Correia occasionally tweets a picture of some of his self-painted miniatures. I don't know what game/genre but they look pretty impressive.

[Lokidude]

Larry plays Warmachine. If I hadn't already been invested in 40K, I'd probably try the Warmachine route.

[Netpackrat]

The more I learn about the world of gamers, the less sense they make to me.

[Steamforger]

The irony is you'd probably dig Battletech. Think Chess, but you have way more than 6 archetypes to choose from and the rules actively encourage you to tinker with designs. Balancing weight, armor, armaments, engines, heat dissipation, ammo/feeding, and movement (I love skidding) are necessary to come up with something that will work. Mediocrity is pretty easy to come by, but something inspiring that can just brutalize everything that steps up to the plate is very interesting. Then you can bring in tanks, APC's, Aerospace fighters and bombers, dropships, powered armor (probably the most accurate imagining of Heinlein's powered armor that has happened to date), infantry, etc.

Also, if you're stationed on a ship that only has 3 duty sections...it's cheap entertainment.