Product Review: Battletech Battlefield Support Recon and hunter Lances

 Hey Folks, we’re back with another product review. On today’s docket is another Battlefield support pack from Catalyst Game Labs.  Like the Lance packs featuring Plastic robots, the Battlefield Support Packs provide Combat Vehicles for the Battletech tabletop game. This is the Recon and Hunter Lances, with a host of options for the budding commander,  Lets dig in and break it down.  

Contents

8 Plastic Vehicles!  (Note, that like all of CGL’s boxed releases, these come fully assembled and ready to play right out of the box).  These packs come with 2 copies of each vehicle, forming 2 full lances of combat vehicles.  The Hunter Lance component pairs 2 Behemoth Heavy Tanks,  and a Pair of Ontos Heavy Tanks.  The Recon Lance has a pair of Skulker Wheeled Scout Tanks and a pair of Warrior H-7 Attack Helicopters.  The vehicle minis are nicely detailed and have very little flashing to get them ready for painting.  

8 Alpha Strike Cards (Dual sided) that feature 4 versions of each pair of vehicles in the pack. 

8 double sided Battlefield Support Cards that feature abbreviated rules for that rules set.  

Breakdown:  

The Battlefield Support Boxes are an exceptional way to add new units to your battletech collection.  Paired vehicles of similar weight classes and battlefield roles gives the player a lot of variety inside the box.  The Hunter Lance is a brick of Bruisers, with the Heavy Tanks having both thick armor and decent firepower.  The Recon lance has nearly unmatched vehicular mobility on the table, with swift VTOLS and quick Scouts to get around objectives.  

The turrets on these tanks rotate, and the tanks have very little clean up needed,  detail is always a concern for miniatures at this size, but these  walk the fine line of enough detail without being a tremendous pain to paint.  The Helicopters come with flight stands to simulate height advantages as well, which is a nice touch.  

AS Point Cost (in the box) 242 for the most expensive cards in the box. 

You can always check the Master Unit List for other versions of these four designs and that can dramatically affect the point values.

Battle Value isn’t calculated for these boxes, and i would suggest you use the Master Unit List to identify what the BV of your force (and specific variations) is.  

Thoughts: If you’re going to use combined arms, the Battlefield support packs give you a lot of options for adding vehicles to your collection.  The miniatures are nice and have a great level of detail for the size of the miniatures.  They expand your options for playing the game and are a very solid value for the price.  

Overall Rating:

4 stars.  

These aren’t for everyone, because not everyone will lean into combined arms, but for the player that wants to dip their toes into the tank pool, Battlefield Support does a great job of giving you those options.  

Currently, it’s priced at $44.99, on the Catalyst Game Labs Store here or Amazon here for $40.62 (Note, that’s an affiliate link and i will make a little bit of money if you buy from Amazon, i don’t have an affiliate code from Catalyst YET)  and these have hit local retailers.  Buy locally when you can.