#Battletech record sheets prototype series#

Ultimately, that solution didn’t really feel right in fact, it was a huge disconnect, especially considering how powerful BattleTech imagery is.

The conceit being that the original illustrations-the ones we could still no longer use-still were those BattleMechs in previous eras hence the silhouettes of these Project Phoenix designs used on record sheets that corresponded to those early Eras. But within the BattleTech universe context, these designs only existed in later Eras. And we did just that, often pushing the look well beyond the original to side-step any possible legal complications. In 2003, FanPro published Technical Readout: Project Phoenix, which created an in-universe reason for why these centuries-old designs would get a face-lift.

#Battletech record sheets prototype series#

When the record sheets were redesigned as part of the publication of the Total Warfare series of rulebooks, and ’Mech illustrations were included on each sheet, those had to be blank or a silhouette. And yet we couldn’t use those illustrations (they became known as the Unseen). The problem, of course, is that these were the ’Mechs that launched BattleTech into the minds and hearts of millions of fans around the world. Starting in 1996, FASA Corporation began that removal and it stayed in force for decades. It all began when the real world impinged upon our favorite game universe.īack in the ’90s, a lawsuit mandated the removal of a dozen “classic” BattleMech designs that could no longer be shown. BATTLETECH CLAN INVASION - REDESIGNING CLASSICS