Welcome to 2026…

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It’s been a while, for which I apologise. I got hit with the cold from … hrm.. what’s a good BattleTech metaphor? The jungles of Old Kentucky? Either way, I picked up a cold from the trip down to one of my contracts’ Christmas bash just before Christmas, which settled in with a vengeance till late January. I managed to record a podcast between Christmas and the New Year, in a brief lull between sneezing my head off and keeping myself awake all night coughing up my lungs.

Not a fun start to the year, and, being a contractor, I don’t get paid for being sick, so the time since has been spent catching up on paid work so I can afford the Corporation Tax bill 😀

Still – I’m back. The podcast is still in the editing stage, but I’m actually about caught up with the stuff that pays the bills, so expect that this week. As a warmup for that, I’ve just updated the events calendar. If there’s any entries for that or the directory that I’ve missed, please let me know and I’ll make sure it’s up and you get a mention in the upcoming episode.

Happy New Year, belatedly!

Mike

P.S. expect dates for Periphery Assault 2026 and another tournament from Tales from the Periphery real soon now!

Periphery Assault 2025 Aftermath

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Whew. All finished.

Winners:

  • Overall Winner: Richard Cook (Snord’s Irregulars)
  • Most Violent (most kill/crippled points): Bartosz Debski (Clan Jade Falcon)
  • Best Tactician (most objective points): Bob Sawyers (Wolf’s Dragoons)
  • Wooden Spoon: Gary Condra (Threshold Strikers – Mercs)
  • Best Painted: Colin Golder (Free Raselhague Republic)

Richard (as overall winner) was ineligible for the Most Violent and Best Tactician awards, otherwise he’d have won Most Violent by a country mile as well.

The results spreadsheet is here if anyone is curious (he says, somewhat nervously hoping he triple-checked the logic and formulae properly – please don’t hurt me if I goofed!)

Huge thanks to Dan, Josh, Bob and Richard for help with setup and teardown, my wife Anne and Sam for cookies, gingerbread ‘Mechs and chocolate muffins, Lesley at the venue for keeping us all fed and watered, and to Ed and the folks at Buy The Same Token for making sure each player had one of their very sweet rear arc templates.

Please note that the BTST links are affiliate links, so if you wish to support the podcast’s recurring monthly costs (subscription to Riverside.FM among other things), don’t hesitate to use them.

See you next year!

(And look out for a catchup episode with Bob just as soon as he gets back from Parts North.)

Episode 15

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In which Mike finally gets to chat to Ed from Buy The Same Token about their fabulous AS tokens.

Useful links, as ever:

  • the tokens themselves can be found here along with some better photos than mine!
  • the BTST discord (this link shouldn’t expire)
  • the Krita open source drawing software Ed mentioned that BTST use – runs on Mac, Windows and Linux.
I was clearly having far too much fun being roundly trounced by Josh the other Monday to actually take many photographs (note the Warhawk getting shot in the rear….).

I will grab some decent ‘posed’ token shots when I get back from Germany next week.

Periphery Assault Player Pack

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You can now download this here.

Event details are here, and the direct link to sign up is here

For those considering staying over the night before, the nearest decent hotels are the Premier Inn Hampton, which is currently about £43 for a single for the Friday night, or the Premier Inn City Centre (about £51). The latter is on the number 5 bus route to the George Alcock.

Episode 14

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In which Mike is back from UKGE, and mostly awake again! Featuring interviews with a bunch of the demo agent team from the show.

Useful links:

  • SciFi Trader. Note that this site is in German, but most modern browsers will do a decent enough job of translating if you ask them to, to enable you to sign up, sign in and buy stuff.
  • Fortress Miniatures and Games.

Episode 13

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In which Mike mostly gets to catch his breath, and report back from a game with the Enfield crew, some painting, listening and a whole load of admin!

Useful links:

  • The Hexperts Podcast – Spotify | YouTube
  • Recent Loren Coleman blog posts on tariffs and how they affect Catalyst – 1 | 2
  • CGL acquire IWM!
  • Upcoming events
  • UK Games Expo BattleTech Events
  • Bryan Young’s “Lone Wolf And Fox” anthology – Amazon
  • Loren Coleman’s “Double Blind” – Amazon
  • Randall Bill’s “Fall From Glory” – Amazon
WIP Clan Wolf
Falcon Guard

Episode 12

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In which Mike gets to chat with BattleTech author Tom Leveen about his experiences as an author, and the upcoming “Blood Will Rise”

Useful links:

Also not mentioned in the podcast (for reasons of time!), the new UK BattleTech podcast Hexperts who, being more organised and efficient than me, already have six episodes out and I’ll talk more about next time!

Episode 11

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In which Mike talks to BattleTech author Bryan Young about Fox Patrol, his recent IlClan era novels, and the upcoming VoidBreaker. And fails to remember to mention the date of Bedford Tabletop Expo (see the events page :D)

Useful links: