Editing Starting Battletech (section)

==What Next?==
Once you've got your hands on your first few 'Mechs, a map, and the core rules, you have to wonder, what next? Well, you COULD stop here. After all, you can use anything to represent a 'Mech. But if you want more 'Mechs, there's a few options

*The first: Iron Wind Metals produces models for nearly every canon design in BattleTech. These models are metal, and some of the designs look rather dated, but for a long time, this was all there was for BattleTech, and buying from IWM has the advantage of letting you pick out exactly the mini you're after from an enormous range. Generally, these models will average about $20 USD each, after the '22 price jump, making them the most expensive choice by far.

*The second: Catalyst Game Labs, who also publish the BattleTech books, produce a range of ForcePacks. These models are plastic, from the same design team that did the models in all the core sets described above, and generally very high quality. The designs have a modern aesthetic that matches current art, and their proportions tend to be good. The big downside of buying from the ForcePacks is that you can only buy from predetermined packs instead of picking and choosing. These packs contain four to six 'Mechs (or eight vehicles) and will run you around $6 per 'Mech.

*The third: Etsy is absolutely full of people selling 3D prints of miniatures for BattleTech. The vast majority of these designs are ripped straight from the video games, particularly ''MechWarrior Online'' and ''MechwWarrior 5: Mercenaries''. Up until AGoAC released, this was the only way to get decent, modern looking models, but with Catalyst's plastic boxes existing, the main utility of the Etsy stores is getting designs that haven't been converted to plastic and don't look good in their metal designs.

===Combined Arms===
'Mechs may be the stars of the show, but BattleTech has more than just 'Mechs. Once you've got ''Total Warfare'' in your hands, BattleTech has rules for plenty of other unit types, including infantry, [[Power Armour#BattleTech Battle Armor|battle-armored infantry]], tanks (combat vehicles), hovercraft, VTOLs (helicopters), aerospace fighters, conventional fighters, [[BattleTech Spacecraft#DropShips|DropShips]] (trans-atmospheric spacecraft) and even aquatic naval vessels. As a general rule, aerospace fighters and naval vessels aren't worth the effort, but the others can be valuable additions to your games after you've gotten BattleMechs under your belt. The issue, of course, is getting models to represent them with.

*As of this writing (April '22), The new ''BattleTech: Mercenaries'' Kickstarter was recently announced, and it will be bringing plastic models of various vehicles to market. It's coming in March 2023.

*Iron Wind Metals produces models for most canon designs. In addition, plenty of vehicles have 3d prints or STLs available on Etsy and similar places, just like 'Mechs.

*The company GHQ Miniatures, which has been making wargame minis since 1967, has a huge line of models from the world wars through to today. They're the right scale for BattleTech (1/285th) and both cheap and high quality. GHQ actually supplies NATO's military wargamers. The only issue is that many designs, especially World War II and current ones, are immediately recognizable, and it might break immersion to put BattleMechs next to what's clearly a T-34, so try pulling obscure and lesser known models - the Cold War is a treasure trove of weird vehicles no one talks about today. That being said, kitbashing and molding with greenstuff works too if you have the time and imagination.

*DropShips take up a full seven hexes (a central hex and the six immediately surrounding it) and are ten levels tall (five times the height of a 'Mech), so they're really best represented with a paper cutout. IWM does sell resin ones, and printed ones are available, but game-scale DropShips are heavily out of scale with 'Mech miniatures, so having an actual model doesn't get you much.

[[Category:BattleTech]]