Thanks for the kind words...
My favorite part of this set really was the research. There is no shortage of inspiration out there if you know where to look.
Peace,

Noted: Additional on JF "total war" concept..
translation.. Zellbringem as we know it is a thing of the past..
The JF clan has turned from just being warriors to also being soldiers.. from a CBT perspective thats a nightmare!

Turretless tanks.. also known in the middle 20th century as "Assult Guns" designed specificly for the set piece advance or defence. On the offence traditionally used to "Open a hole" in conjunction with infantry, artillery and Tac Air, to allow conventional turreted tanks through. In The BT universe this would be Mechs, which have the speed and wepons payload to properly exploit a breach in enemy defences, and VTOL forces taking the place of traditional armored infantry formations due to the ability to keep up with the mechs.
This of course is all operational level stuff, but at the Tactical level the only change is one of scale.

Mech designed as much for the psycological effect as cfor combat effectivnessis nothing new in the BT universe. The DC No Dachi, Akuma, , the Liao designs, traditional comstar, Davion and Stiener designs (known more for thier strait functionality and combat effectivness then for thier good looks) .. the list goes on.

If I do have a hope for this next set it is that the Liao forces get filled out a bit. They need some more infantry types (liao morter teams would be nice) and some sort of attack VTOL, and some more ground armor of some sort.

I'm a firm beliver that WK should finish filling out existing factions..
Liao doesn't need any more LE's at this time. Some of the other factions could definatly use them.

With the Jade Falcons coming in to the current conflaguration in the Republic of the Sphere, a much bigger war begins to evolve, and seeing actuall house militaries (other then Lia) cant be far behind. Sounds like we're about to begin the 5th succesion war
(for you unfamiliar, the 4th war was the Federated Suns crippling the Capellan Confederation about 20 years prior to the clan invasion). Over all most militarys in the current BT unverse are not as large as they were during the clan wars, but they are far more balanced forces with a true combined arms mix, and something that was NOT availible untill after the clan invasion.... Warships.. Somewhere along the way the MW line is going to get areospace fighters. On the play surface they'll act as airborn artillery most likely (drop a line of pogs to represent a bomb/strafe run?) The adding of more factions to the line up though really is enevitable..The Battletech universe is about war..which has been going on with no more then a 60 year (the most recent) break since the fall of the Star League.

Personally, I wanna get more stuff on the WOB Jihad. I mean really.. a desperate fight against a more numerous, and fanatical foe.. stuff which a warriors dreams are made of!

Bring it on!

(I had been wondering about the wings function..jump jet control surfaces using some vectored thrust tech, combined with part of the sensor array and a radiator system for the heat sinks was what I figured. considering the cost of a mech, a few extra thousand C-bills to the design team to marry form and function..sure, why not!)

I have a little theory as to how the wing sinks function. If a Mech like the shrike is in standby or is operation byut in a non combat situation, the wings are fully contracted and probably locked down. The more the heat rises in a mech, the higher/wider the wings expand to quickly dissapate the heat. So when Trovic Alpha Strikes the Wings fully expand and thus the next turn he can start back up immediatly. but if he is just jumping and using his popguns the wings will only be about halfway out at best.

in short the profile of the wings is directly coorelated to the activity of the Mechs engine.

A few other interesting things:

- Vented heat sinks (actually, ANY heat sinks) would not be effective in space, after all, space is a vacuum, and vacuums, as any thermos will demonstrate, are great for holding heat in. Any scenarios on say a small moon would reduce heat sink effectiveness considerably.

- All that extra surface area in the wings translates into extra wind resistance when moving. Those mechs have got to be beasts to control at medium to high speeds. And fighting in anything other than a dead calm day would really work the internal gyro's.

Introducing a new technology can sometimes have unexpected consequences..

Hence why I belive that the only reason the wings are up and deployed are when the engine is dangerously hot, otherwise thewy are in some state of halfway open behind the bulk of the mechs body.

The surface area of a wing-style heat-sink is still an effective radiating body for disipating heat. Convection is not the only means of moving heat from one place to another.

Thanks for posting this article. It's a mixed thing, to have my suspicion that WizKids choose "cool" over "functional" in designing the sculpts confirmed so openly.

**sigh**

I guess I am one of the few who like the design. All the mechwarrior player at my venue are excited for this set. As for the Wings I could see them opening fulling during the end of a DFA. Imagine being a pilot and looking up and seeing a huge 95 ton Bird of Prey coming for a landing on your head? Never count out psycolgical impacts. Just look at the description for the Atlas. It was built to be terrifying.....

Agreed, but without an atmosphere the wings would be almost incandescent (read: glowing hot and self-damaging) while hardly discharging any amount of heat.

In fact, it is quite likely that ANY type of fusion engine would overheat a mech or vehicle in a vacuum. An ICE mech with O2 bottles or some kind of battery technology might be the only answer to space battles.

More info on heat transfer in a vacuum here:

http://www.clavius.org/heatxfer.html

auctually auctually it is possible that the wings can also turn thermal energy into radiant energy (of one type or another) efficiently, possibly even a near a near 1-to-1 basis, I know the Laser heat sinks released it in the visible spectrum.

what panda mech!?!?!? WHERE!!!! hey a panda mech running down the battle field ready to beat the living daylight outta ya w/ his big ### bambo stick of death...

as far as the wings on thing mech thingy there... wing heat sinks 'sound' like a good idea but the JF went a little over board w/ it... 4 vent is great and all, but ya dun want a really big bulleye glue to the back of your battle mech... that's like tatooing 'shoot me' to your forehead... it's just not smart... the design of the mech and vehicle are GREAT i have to say... if only the wings were smaller... like those on a ocelot or something, except w/ 4 blades instead of 2... there could be 6 blades but the last 2 have to be a lot smaller than the other 4.... oh yea since them wing heat sink are sooo good, why not have extremly good heat dial, LONG heat dial, like a full dial w/ no color or something great, instead of only 4....

well, i like the article and even if most people cry havok, it stays true to the most obvius points of JF tradition.

regarding the mech itself, I like it, i for once would love to see what those who say its to manga-ish said about the unseen reseen debacle.

great work mr Bonilla.

the wings are cool stuff attached to a cool impossible machine and are used to dissipate "do i buy this?" doubts in customer minds.

doubt sinks, thats what they are ment for.
do they work?...

which part of "unusual clip design" did you not get ? in no where does it state that the guns were based on the chauchat , just the clip design . there's no long recoil or what not .

Good work on WK's part . NOW ... i'm just keeping my fingers crossed for a 400+ point Behemoth ...
-yitJuan-

I think the new designs are freak’n cool! Though I though the whole “Falcon” them design was a little over the top at first but Battletech was heading this direction towards the end of the Fasa run (the clan proto-mechs had animal heads). But I don’t know why you guys are stressing over the “function” of the wing so much; this is science fiction, HOW FUNCTIONAL IS A GAINT WALKING TANK FOR THE LOVE OF BLAKE! (joking, joking, put down the torches and pitchforks) And though I’ve been one of the guys screaming for WK to start making more old school mechs, I’m glade to see more original designs. Remember the Tundra Wolf and Mad Cat 3 we where drooling over in the beginning of DA, now it looks like we FINALLY got a lot more to look forward to. Lets just hope WK doesn’t screws this up some how.