They sent me one of these, a Mad Cat, that has a Nerf-like rocket launcher and little levers you can wiggle to make its legs move. It stands about 14" tall maybe, and actually looks pretty cool.

14 inches tall, eh? That is pretty cool. I figured they were much smaller.

There was a website somewhere about a guy who used Legos, I think, to make a lot of big mechs. These were 2 and 3 foot tall mechs, as I recall, and looked really nice.

Mine came fully assembled, thankfully. I doubt I could have assembled it well.

I actually picked one of these up a little while ago (the Mad Cat), and am assembling it slowly but surely. I'm pretty impressed so far, it's ingeniously built and relatively easy to put together.

Sounds like it will make a nice addition to a bookshelf or cube. I'm looking forward to the Wizkids Battletech stuff.

"I'm looking forward to the Wizkids Battletech stuff"

Hrm... I was definitely NOT impressed with the first thing I saw. The "Forestry Mech" or whatever infernal lumberjacking absurdity that was. Hrm... a mech with a chainsaw hand? Maybe in Warhammer 40K or something, but as far as Battletech goes such foolery is RIGHT OUT.

I'm all for inexpensive miniatures - but I do so wish they'd just remake the "classics" and then build up from there. I see the current plan at wizkids to be some bizarre attempt to Poke'fy Battletech.

Ok... I'm going to coin a term:

Poke'Mech

It's mine, you can't have it.

One of the nice things about the Wizkids Battlemechs is that they'll be at model railroad scale, so you can buy any of that stuff (trees, etc.) and it will look right.

The Wizkids game is also going to be more combined arms oriented, with a greater emphasis on non-mechs.

Also, Wizkids has licensed some minatures maker to continue to make the metal figures for the existing game.

Read the Stackpole fiction that accompanies the new BattleTech stuff, and read his response to the critics. Hmm, links can be found at the WizKids site and BadKarma.net as well I think. Anyhow, the WizKids venture is the official new Btech. The old one will continue, with Fantasy Productions handling what aspects of the game line they choose to continue, and I'm sure we'll see lots of stuff for "classic" Btech. The new one is needed, according to Stackpole, because 1) they've taken it about as far as it can go in terms of the gameworld fiction, and 2) right now you need to read someting like a million words (novels and game materials) to get up to speed, and many of the novels are out of print.

I was quite leery of the new stuff based solely on that forestry 'Mech, but after reading Stackpole's short fiction about the setting, it makes sense. The gameworld is a century or more after the Word of Blake crisis, and everyone has turned swords into plowshares--or in this case, BattleMechs into FertilizerMechs. Fusion engines are rare, because they have no real use but war, so internal combustion agriMechs are the norm. There are still "real" BattleMechs, though, and in the miniatures game they are expected to form the centerpiece of armies I think.

The collectible aspect of the game is interesting. I have some MageKnight figs, and they're very good I think, so I'm optimistic there. And that line has been so profitable that the figs for Btech should be even better, given the improvements they've amde. Yeah, I would like to see a similar thing with "classic" Btech, but there you have it.

For really classic, Inner Sphere fun, try EA's beta of Multiplayer BattleTech 3025, which is quite decent.