Battletech: Iron Wind Metals Savage Wolf - First Look

Tune in today as I discuss take a look at the new Iron Wind Metals Savage Wolf.
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[@KeithCrowe]

I'm a big fan of Iron Wind Metals. I usually shop at the factory with my family when we're in the area. The IWM team is always so nice. They've given us a tour, shown us the mold making process, and we've seen them making minis. My son and I usually pick up Battletech minis and my wife likes to pick out horror figures. We picked up a lot of their newer releases and newer era minis during our last visit. It's great being able to buy minis by the pound 😀

[@MrBeenReadyy]

35 likes and 22 comments in 2 hours, a small but extremely supportive community here for your Justin, your hard work on this channel will pay off

[@jackcarrol9072]

Very nice video. I think I remember CGL saying the Merc Kickstarter will be either their last or close to the last kickstarter they do for Battletech.

[@ROTSTarge]

I would love to see 3d printed weapon pod variants, maybe a Gauss Rifle or different missile pods that match the style.

[@BlUsKrEEm]

I do love IWM's sculpts. The plastics are nice, especially for the price, but I usually go with IWM for my 'hero' mechs. There's just something about style and heft and the options that just makes the IWM mechs feel more important. I'm glad to see some reviews of their newer stuff.

[@AndyPaintsPoorly]

I would LOVE to see plastic bird mechs for my Jade Falcons - IWM minis are pretty expensive to get in the UK too.

[@lorcannagle]

A bunch of the iconic Wolf and Falcon mechs are indeed in the works. According to the KerenskyKon leaks, there's an ilClan forcepack planned for next year with a Wulfen, Amarok, Dominator, Night Wolf and Black Hawk J; a Jade Falcon pack with a Gyrfalcon, Eyrie, Jupiter, Shrike and Cougar. A 21st Centauri Lancers one with a Jade Hawk (amongst others). and then in 2026 they plan a Wolf Empire pack with a Warwolf, Alpha Wolf, Blood Reaper, Firestorm and Stormwolf; and an Alyina Mercantile League one with an ion Sparrow, Jade phoenix, Hierofalcon, Hellcat and Thor. Now, you can absolutely argue these should be out sooner and I don't necessairly disagree, but the lead times for plastic production are long, especially when using third party factories in China, and CGL wasn't necessarily swimming in capital to invest until the Mercs Kickstarter...

[@Thearmedpainter]

Good to know, but if they wanted those books to land better might have been better to shelve them until it was ready for an optimal release rather than pump and dump em without the supporting products to make them land better. As it stands now, anyone who bought those books at release have been sitting on them for years and haven't had the support (in minis) to run the units from those books. I'm not one to simply be critical of CGL for critical sake, but rather I really hope they learn and do a better job with their product release scheduling and planning. Furthermore, I REALLY hope they get off the KS bandwagon. I'm personally KSd out and I'd rather see a more thought out product release schedule that does more to support FLGS rather than the pump-n-dump on KS that raises hype, hype dies down for a year or two, and all of the risk is shunted onto the consumers. That said, silver lining is at least we are getting the plastics at SOME point, however considering I was at the first KKon with Fortress and was told one of the Jade Falcon force packs was ready then...and it still hasn't released is irritating.

[@lorcannagle]

@@Thearmedpainter Well part of the problem is that IlClan came out around the same time the Clan Invasion Kickstarter was fulfilling, and CGL's paradigm was still that they were a game publisher who did miniatures production on the side instead of BattleTech at least being a minis game to a larger degree, as well as the Clan Invasion and Mercs kickstarter concentrating on getting old art and units up to modern aesthethic standards (again, for good or ill, that was the decision). Could be that will change now, especially as production of sourcebooks pushing the universe forward seems to be slowing down again. On the Kickstarter front, CGL has said a few times they don't forsee the need to do another minis-centred campaign for BattleTech at least. The lead time on the minis coming out now is pretty long though, like I wrote some pilot cards in December of last year, and the set they're for probably won't be out until the Spring!

[@Dreadwolf3155]

maybe they should explore not using Chinese factories then....lower production costs 'maybe' but how much are you losing in sales due to the lag time? For pete's sake just start 3D printing already!

[@lorcannagle]

@@Dreadwolf3155 The problem becomes producing minis at volume at an affordable price. Like the premium plastic minis that were originally produced by Creative Juggernaut and now by Monster Fight Club are produced in the US, and two of them cost about as much as 4 of the CGL/Liya plastics. I never handled a Creative Juggernaut one, but the Monster Fight Club ones are made of a thermoplastic like Siocast and they have some weird qualities, like try drilling into one to pin or to fit magnets or weapon effects or whatever, the holes try to close up. The plastic is a lot softer than the Liya stuff too. 3D printing is right out as a production option for the forseeable future, even leaving aside questions around quality and fragility of prints, apparently Topps are totally averse to the technology and have nixed more than one proposition around 3D printing for BattleTech and Shadowrun.

[@DukeTodd100]

Thank you for the video. I have been thinking about this one. It’s good to see how many pieces before I purchase.

[@speeddemonpainting7050]

Agreed... I want these IlClan Forcepacks soon! That being said, there seems to be a focus on getting faction specific mechs out as well, along with their faction books too. But it's just crazy how they want to hype up IlClan and then mostly give us 3050 mech designs with 3150 grade weapons.

[@Thearmedpainter]

I’m waiting on those Combine Samurai mechs :)

[@michaelallen3894]

Anastasia has the streak srm-6s and Alaric has the ATM-9s. Also, the way the legs are designed there's a lock in them to hold them in place.

[@efarias2180]

I agree 100%. They should have released this as a force pack. I bought 3 of the IWM Savage Wolves and am currently painting them up in Kerensky's and Alaric's SW and the third in Beta Galaxy. I love the look of it tho. And the poseablility for these are nice. This was one mech that was in dire need of an update imo.

[@Andaman1979999]

All we are missing now is a clan wolverine force pack. I would pay for that even if it was all metal

[@Rhaumar]

There has been a rumor that a number of force packs including the newer mechs will be in, but, they will not be coming out for a couple years.

[@timunderbakke8756]

Probably longer than what catalyst said too, judging on the fact that we are into q3 and the q2 products haven’t delivered to retail yet

[@Rhaumar]

​@@timunderbakke8756 I agree with you on that point. I'm patiently awaiting those releases.

[@KerenskyTheRed]

You're right that they should have got this in plastic when ilClan came out. I've been patiently waiting for plastic models for a couple years now. I don't work with metal.

[@mondohunter]

Excellent video!

[@Metal_Carnage]

I have not put one together yet, but from my experience the joints on metal minis based on CGL renders are fantastic and pinning is optional. The sculpts have good contact and large surface area for the joints. I agree that miniature releases in time with new source material could generate significant momentum for the product line. While Battletech has always had lag time between source material and miniatures, the technology to coordinate it is getting better. The downside is release lag or products getting juggled around in the schedule can still complicate the process.

[@Thearmedpainter]

I'd agree to a yes and no. Old IWM are pretty horrendous to work with, grab an old Savage Wolf vs the new one and it's pretty clear which one is easier to build. The new metals are by far designed better, I'll give them that for sure.

[@Rhaumar]

CGL needs to make some of the IlClan era clan mechs.

[@Dreadwolf3155]

very cool the book wasn't printed in China! I very much want me one of those savage wolf mechs!

[@mikefenton5961]

You make a good point about CGL's release schedule. People around me tend to play earlier ages, but I actually like some of the ilclan stuff, but I haven't focused on the minis because people aren't playing it much and to you point, they really aren't available.

[@timunderbakke8756]

I’ve been really trying to push my group a little forward into civil war/jihad at least. Though that’s mostly because I really want my IWM vehicles to be valid and some of them are in that era. Plus there are plastic force packs from the civil war

[@mikefenton5961]

@@timunderbakke8756 I'm an outlier in that I love the Jihad era, or perhaps I love the potential of the era. The execution was a mess because of Wizkids. But Jihad has so much potential to have the same feel as 3025 but with the new tech levels. Units cut off, scrambling for salvage to survive while be hunted by blakists. What a terrible missed opportunity.

[@usekungfu]

Outstanding!

[@christophermavromatis7724]

Hopefully IWM continues to survive in a environment of plastic mechs from CGL for a quarter of the price.

[@timunderbakke8756]

The more I see of CGL, the more I like IWM and want to get more metal. I love the sculpts CGL does, but man I have no faith when I’ll ever see their future products.

[@BrotherKarr22]

Totally agree with the front portion of the video! The lack of force pack mechs from the ilClan era is causing me to not want to use those units in a game. I am not a huge fan of IWM any longer now that there are good plastics in the wild. I’ll buy some IWM items here and there, but I prefer the plastics or 3rd party 3d prints more than the metals. I know I would need the metal mini for a tournament. But I hate assembling metals, I have been playing since the 90’s.

[@whitardesigns7572]

Still much better casting then the rushed horrible plastic china puts out now. Good mech, always loved the looks of it. Worst with pewter is pinning, and I hate the ball joints in metal minis, never hold together :)

[@michaelallen3894]

Just finished building one. I have three total lol

[@Reywind_PL]

Nice review.

[@Zac_Bracher]

I like IWM...but I gotta say, I prefer the Catalyst plastics 🤷

[@117Aster]

I totally agree with your assessment of the release schedule. Hard to play ilClan, the current era, when the minis haven't caught up yet! There is a force pack planned, the "Third Star League Battle Star - Fourth Quarter 2024" with a prepainted plastic Savage Wolf, but that will be going on 4 real-world years after the ilClan era was established.

[@ObiwanNekody]

I imagine part of it is they wanted to make sure it didn't flop. Dark Age was horrifically unpopular, they took a risk pushing the timeline and jeeping that in the future history. My local group didn't want to play any Dark Age or later until a year or so ago really.

[@Thearmedpainter]

Makes it easier to flop when they don’t have minis to encourage it 🤷‍♂️

[@Thearmedpainter]

I’m not very excited about the pre painted savage wolf, for the same reasons I’m not excited about the other pre painted minis :/

[@andystocking5316]

@@Thearmedpainter So the pre-painted minis are actually mostly just colored plastic with very little paint/stickers on it, I've primed right over Kerensky's orion with no issues whatsoever.

[@timunderbakke8756]

If that actually comes q4 2024 I’ll buy it. The problem is I’m afraid it’ll be way later down the path. The q2 products have still not made it to shelves and only showed up at GenCon. It’s q3.

[@jgnunan]

Its an interesting idea - force packs that are era based..... or are they (says the newb). Hi chat - love the comments.

[@ObiwanNekody]

How savage!

[@BlUsKrEEm]

Very Wolf!

[@fherot8200]

I still don’t get why they redesigned the savage wolf from how it looked in that book and Legends I + Bonfire of Worlds etc. It was already sexy.

[@Thearmedpainter]

I like the upper torso of the old one pretty well, the arm and hip assembly though...dear lord was it bad.

[@lord17c]

iron wind metals has some awesome looking stuff for sure, but I think the price will push people to only buy their favorite mechs from there.

[@gstillings5140]

I would assume that they got feedback from customers to determine what eras people wanted plastics for and prioritized off of that. ilClan era I honestly don't expect a lot for until they make the 100 year jump and start releasing books and miniatures for the 3200s era.

[@Thearmedpainter]

I don't think CGL proper has actually listened to the majority of the community on things, else a lot of stuff would be different. They made a HUGE deal about Hour of The Wolf and the culmination of decades of story coming to a point, I cannot imagine all of the effort they put into hyping that book and the ilClan after were made assuming people 'didn't' want new minis for the very eras they were promoting. If that was the case, why bother doing those books at all? Do something else and release those books when they have minis. The current path they are on where they've put out a book and waited two-years to put out a mini from said book is counter productive. It would have been received better had the books been delayed and released with new force packs to correspond with them. Otherwise, and the boat most of us are in, we end up buying source books and such and then shelving them because the minis we'd like to use to reflect those books don't exist (or are really old not great metal versions). I'm all about buying BT stuff but I will be critical of CGL when that critical view is due, and right here, it's definitely due.

[@SirHatz]

The savage wolf at con is a resculpt.. i have had metal savage wolf minis for more than a year

[@Thearmedpainter]

It’s the modern Savage Wolf for the current designs, there is an old one but this one is in line with the new art.

[@ninneplug]

Fortress is out of stock. :(

[@killroy255]

You do realize theres 2 savage wolf models made by iwm, right? 20-5223 and 20-5025 youve got the first one in this video i believe. The latter one I seem to remember being released a _long_ time ago

[@Thearmedpainter]

@@killroy255 yes. This is the modern “resculpt.” I’m very familiar with the original one, my first entry on CSO was a Savage Wolf so, yup, pretty familiar. camospecs.com/listing/mad-cat-iv-2/

[@madcat3525]

Great review! Looking forward to more videos and reviews.

[@o-Maulwurf-o]

Any thoughts which faction and unit it will be in?

[@Thearmedpainter]

Which faction I'll paint this as?

[@o-Maulwurf-o]

@@Thearmedpainter Yes

[@DropshipOklahoma]

Iron wind has always been slow on metal versions..

[@Thearmedpainter]

I mean, they were first to the game on this one. I don't blame IWM for this, the metal modernized Savage Wolf, beat the plastics to market.

[@timb.4516]

Metal models need to go away already, it's 2024. Nearly $30 for a minis that is best mediocre, in an awful medium is just not ok to modern gamers. When GW prices seem generous in comparison, you have a problem. .

[@PheonixRises2040]

$25 for one mech and no alpha strike card? Terrible value imo.

[@DropshipOklahoma]

The card is free online..

[@PheonixRises2040]

@@DropshipOklahoma I am talking about the official one that comes with the force packs smart aleck..

[@DropshipOklahoma]

@PheonixRises2040 it could be a licensing issue.. since iron wind is not tied to catalyst

[@PheonixRises2040]

@@DropshipOklahoma well if that’s the case it is still not a good value. You pay the same price as a force pack and you don’t get an alpha strike card. If it was $10 then I can see it being worth it but not at that price.

[@DropshipOklahoma]

@PheonixRises2040 well the metal they used has gone up in price.. why the price increase.. but the way alt versions are going to be done by iron wind..