Grey Death Legion

[Sofa_Kinng]

Anyone else read these? I thought it was a great series. Lost Tech would be a neat addition to the game too, no?

[(TLL) Heretic]

Lost Tech is already in the game, Gauss Rifles, ECM suites etc etc all that stuff was Lost Tech in the 3010-20s (when the saga is set).

[MatthewPryde]

Well they were not lost to the clans, just to the inner sphere.

And since we are on good old Greyson, was anyone else pissed at "The Dying time" as much as I was? I loved those guys and they deserved a better ending.

[Stahlseele]

What irked me more was that they only got mentioned once in one of the dark age novels.
while someone was talking about their home planet there was something like:"once home of a now long forgotten mercenary unit" and that was it

[Wizard^^]

I'm just about finshed the 3rd book now (just got to chapter 31).

I hate how the first and last are about Dukes and there plans to take from others. All that happens is lots of death..
Oh and lots of spies

Great merc's, Good story, badly done. 

[(TLL) Heretic]

I'm just about finshed the 3rd book now (just got to chapter 31).

I hate how the first and last are about Dukes and there plans to take from others. All that happens is lots of death..
Oh and lots of spies

Great merc's, Good story, badly done. 

Your talking about "Price of Glory" right?

I wouldn't say badly done, sure the writing is stronger in places than in others, but it's a cracking good read and I bet you had trouble putting it down?   And the fact that Grays Idealism (he's very young in all the books) often ends as a pawns story in a game of chess is a device I like, put's things in perspective.

The BTU had been in a state of near constant warfare for 300 years, that's why the bigger picture is a little bleak.

[Ghiest]

What irked me more was that they only got mentioned once in one of the dark age novels.
while someone was talking about their home planet there was something like:"once home of a now long forgotten mercenary unit" and that was it

They were pretty much forgotten all through the clan era, almost all but killed off really.  For a unit that brought hte IS back into the game with the LosTech cache data the rest of the novels seem to just gloss over the point really.  And to see they were basically killed off with no rime nor reason pissed me off no end.  I didn't read any of the DA stuff, I have hard enough time coming to terms with the butchery they did with the clans turning up in the universe and completely ruining any sort of balanced fun board game play.

As for the third book, it is imo the weakest of the three, and I still prefer the first out of the trilogy as the strongest storyline to get to grips with.  But my favourite set of BTU books are the Warrior series, Justin Allard was just a likeable figure I think and the whole Solaris battle imagery was fantastic.

[Wizard^^]

@(TLL) Heretic
I couldn't put down the first 2 but I'm having trouble reading the 3rd "The Price Of Glory" as I said before its boring repeat of the first.
The fact that William H. Keith Jr got to butcher "Tactics Of Duty" doesn't help. this time the Gray Death legion is in the place of the Duke/Lord.
I think Michael A. Stackpole (The first Battletech novel writer just published 3rd for some reason) would have done a better job.
But I should blame the writer it may have been Fasa and its outline that they wanted.


@Ghiest
Gloss over?? they got another novel

[Ghiest]

@Ghiest
Gloss over?? they got another novel

Which was utter shite on a stick

[Wizard^^]

Ok I'll pay that

[(TLL) Heretic]

Price of Glory does seem a re-run of Thunder Rift, I'll agree it's more in a Return of the Jedi re-run of Star Wars way than anything else.  Plus it introduces ComStar and a higher political awareness level than any of the other books; but I accept that Keith is not as good as Stackpole.

I Like "shit happens" happening twice anyways, like the characters are destined to repeat the same trials again and again,  Evil Dead/Army of Darkness, Back to the Future I,II & III etc

[Wizard^^]

I still think Grey Death Legion should get more books written about them. But ones where they are just fighting huge odds and not back stabbing SOBs

[~SJ~ Xarg]

I recently got The Dying Time off my friend before he moved to Australia. I've got 5 or 6 BT novels now, and I have to say, despite being the same sort of size and length as the others, this book just felt like it dragged on forever. I feel about this book the same way I feel about Clan vs IS in the books. I love to play as Clan, but for some reason I find reading Clan books to be... I don't know... more dull? than reading IS books.

It's probably the lack of spying, lying, cheating and backstabbing (Call of Duty for example with Count Nicholas Fisk playing Archer's Avengers against Snord's Irregulars, while manouevering the Irregulars into a bad position politically, and playing Wolverton's Highlanders against their parent unit, the men of the unit against their commander, and them against Snord's Irregulars. Hell of a lot of political manouevering going on, while you have a good battle and interpersonal interaction going on at the same time.)

I figured being an IS book, sending a bunch of mercs to defend a planet they'd attacked only 10-15 years earlier would be brilliant drama... instead it seemed to bog down into a slow-motion game of chess with 2 half-blind opponents, flailing out with pawns until something like 1/2 to 2/3 through the book, when suddenly you get the GDL being pitted against some stupid number of Skye rebels outside Defiance Industries. A lot of seemingly important people just get snuffed out on random skirmishes (GDL flyboy randomly killed to lucky autocannon fire across cockpit, Lori Kalmar-Carlyle killed by a grenade because she forgot to take off her coolant vest in a locker room, and another high-ranking GDL guy gets killed at the very start of a fight by a lucky cockpit shot.)

At the end of the book, I felt, I dunno... cheated? Boring boring boring guy dies, boring boring 2 guys die, boring, insanely big battle, more people die, GDL is nearly completely wiped out, and the book ends... somewhat ambiguously too, as if to give the reader the feeling that Katrina wants the unit gone for good.

[Wizard^^]

I think your Friend made a bad choice giving you the book. 
But smart for moving to the best place on Earth.

[pht]

Yeah, the dying time was boring a heck.  I had more fun doing my income taxes than I did reading that book.    I mean, I can stand that you want to take out a main character, but it better be well written and thought out - not the equivalent of what they did to kill off kirk in the star-trek movies. 

About the lostech comment: some of it still isn't in the game.  The chameleon LPS stealth setup, for example. Of course, some things do better *staying* lost.