SHADOWRUN

EXPLORE THE SIXTH WORLD LIKE NEVER BEFORE

Coming soon, three indispensable Shadowrun sourcebooks that delve into the gritty depths of the Sixth World. An unparalleled look at a host of different facets of the universe you can apply in every game you play!

Sixth World Almanac

How bad was the VITAS outbreak for the people who were there? What was Renraku Arcology—and its operating software—like before it became a total nightmare? How does it feel to get off a plane and set foot in the ghoul kingdom of Asamondo?

The Sixth World Almanac is the ultimate compendium of Sixth World energy, history, and geography. With the most detailed timeline in Shadowrun’s history and write-ups of nearly forty major nations, this book immerses players and gamemasters in the Sixth World deeper than they have ever been.

The Almanac is full of Shadowrun firsts, including the first-ever full-color map of the entire Sixth World and new fiction covering historic eras that have never been detailed in past sourcebooks. Open the Almanac and fall into the Sixth World—let the art, the maps, and the writing bring you more completely into one of the most exciting, enduring role-playing settings of all time!

Attitude

They can have their offices, their paychecks, their 2.2 kids and their robot-trimmed lawns. Screw ‘em. They trudge through life, doing what other people tell them to do, never having an original thought, burying themselves so deep down inside they might never come out.

You’re not them. The world’s not giving you anything, so you’re going to take what you can get. You’re on the streets, on your own. Maybe you’re helping an orxploitation band shoot to the top, maybe you’re climbing up the Street Brawl ladder, or maybe you’re getting famous just for being you. Whatever you do, you’ll do it your way, because dying beats the hell out of selling out.

Attitude helps shadowrunners live the untethered life by giving them the lowdown on music, entertainment, sports, and other scenes where they can make their mark without selling their soul. A repository of Sixth World culture along with a treasury of new ways to run in the shadows, Attitude is an indispensable resource for all Shadowrun players.

War!

The diplomats have failed. The tensions have only grown worse. Each side has pushed the other too far, so there’s nothing left to do but fight. At the border of Aztlan and Amazonia, war has broken out.

This isn’t an ordinary war. Sure, there are plenty of guns, grenades, and bombs flying around; the streets of Bogota are being pummeled, and mercenaries are being hired and killed in approximately equal numbers. But there’s more going on—blood is being spilled in dark rooms to give strength to mages on the battlefield, and there are dark secrets in the jungle that surrounds Bogota.

War! puts Shadowrun players into the world of open combat. From sabotage missions behind enemy lines to intelligence operations to small-squad mercenary tactics, War! provides the background information, gear, and rules players need to survive and thrive on the firing line.

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BATTLETECH

JIHAD: THE END COMES

In November 3067 the Word of Blake unleashed the Jihad: a war unlike any seen in centuries. In the furious campaign of terror and deception, billions have died, mighty armies have fallen and ancient empires have shattered. Yet heroes have arisen, the tide has fully turned…and the end comes.

Coming soon, three indispensable BattleTech sourcebooks will cover the last years of the Jihad and the founding of The Republic of the Sphere as humanity begins the painful process of rebuilding.

An unparalleled time of excitement you can participate in, in every game you play!

Jihad Hot Spots: Terra

Jihad Hot Spots: Terra is more than just the next installment in the Jihad plot sourcebook series. 3078 is the pivotal year of the entire Jihad conflict. The massed allied armies of the Inner Sphere, having cracked the Blakist Hegemony, assault Terra on a scale not seen since Aleksandr Kerensky freed humanity’s birthworld from Amaris the Usurper at the fall of the first Star League three centuries ago.

In addition to the “Jihad Hot Spot”-style sourcebook coverage for the years 3077-3078, a mini Terra System sourcebook will cover this most important of all star systems in a level of detail never before provided to BattleTech players. The book includes a rules section covering the complete system defenses of humanity’s cradle, such as the Castle Brian complexes, Caspar II drones, SDS surface-to-orbit capital weapons, Meggido satellites and more.

Technical Readout: 3085

Technical Readout: 3085 covers from the middle of the Jihad until several years after its end and into the start of the next BattleTech Era: Dark Age. As with any Technical Readout, this sourcebook provides a wealth of new battle armor, vehicles, BattleMechs and aerospace units that premiered during the final years of the Jihad and its aftermath.

In addition, for the first time ever in a Technical Readout, a conventional infantry section details the most elite and unique infantry organizations from across the Inner Sphere that proved so vital in the down-and-dirty fighting of the Jihad: from House Davion’s Blue Water Marine Response Teams, to ComStar’s Explorer Corps Hostile Environment Recon Units, to the Rasalhague Dominion’s Tyr Counter Insurgency Platoons and the Taurian Concordat’s Special Asteroid Support Forces. These descriptions and more will give players a host of ideas for infantry action from the board game to A Time of War: The BattleTech RPG.

BattleMechs that previously appeared in Technical Readout: Project Phoenix find a new home here as well, with newly commissioned artwork by Matt Plog, updated information for the ‘Mechs’ deployments through the end of the Jihad, and new variants.

Finally, with rumors of the Word of Blake potentially fielding Land-Air BattleMechs, a Star League section provides a historical look at the original four LAMs (including the prototype Shadow Hawk), with all new illustrations. (All new, fully meshed rules for complete LAM use will be published in the Interstellar Operations core rulebook, currently in development; quick-start LAM rules will appear in Record Sheets: 3085.)

Jihad: Final Reckoning

Jihad: Final Reckoning brings to a close the current massive story arc begun in 2005 with the publication of the Dawn of the Jihad sourcebook. Covering the years 3079 to 3081, this sourcebook not only wraps up the final battles that occur after the titanic events of the Terran System invasion, but includes complete deployment, movement and conflict tables for all military forces involved with the Jihad across the entire fourteen-year conflict.

The book also sets the stage for the various factions coming out of the Jihad, as well as covering new factions that have arisen, such as the Republic of the Sphere, with rules for their use.

Finally, The Legacy of the Word and Rules sections cover the Hidden Five Worlds, as well as revealing a host of previously hidden technologies in development but never fielded before the war ended. These include Caspar III SAS drones, Machina Domini, super-heavy BattleMechs, Celestial LAMs and more.

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After weeks of discussion, The Topps Company and Catalyst Game Labs are both pleased to announce that a license extension to the popular intellectual properties of BattleTech and Shadowrun is under final review. All terms have been agreed upon, and the paperwork should be ready for signatures very soon. In the meantime, Catalyst Game Labs continues to operate as manager for the two brands under the operations extension allowed by their original license.

“Working with The Topps Company continues to be a pleasure,” said Randall Bills, Catalyst’s Managing Developer. “We feel we are improving relations every day.”

Tina Trenkler, The Topps Company manager overseeing Catalyst’s operations, said, “We are very happy to have Catalyst continue to be involved with these important licenses and are fully supportive in helping them regain their footing.”

Catalyst Game Labs recently released an historical sourcebook for BattleTech, Operation Klondike, which is being received as one of their best titles in the last year, and will be shortly releasing for print publication Technical Readout: 3085 for BattleTech, as well as Corporate Guide and the much-anticipated Sixth World Almanac for Shadowrun.

Catalyst Game Labs

Catalyst Game Labs is dedicated to producing high quality games and fiction that mesh sophisticated game mechanics with dynamic universes-all presented in a form that allows beginning players and long-time veterans to easily jump into our games and fiction readers to enjoy our stories even if they don’t know the games.

Catalyst Game Labs is an imprint of InMediaRes Productions, LLC, which specializes in electronic publishing of professional fiction. This allows Catalyst to participate in a synergy that melds printed gaming material and fiction with all the benefits of electronic interfaces and online communities, creating a whole-package experience for any type of player or reader. Find Catalyst Game Labs online at www.catalystgamelabs.com

Topps Company, Inc.


Topps is an international marketer of entertainment products, principally collectible trading cards, confections, sticker collections, and collectible strategy games.

The Topps Company was founded in 1938 as Topps Chewing Gum, and in its early years produced a popular penny “Topps Gum” from a factory in Brooklyn, N.Y. After World War II, the company developed Bazooka Bubble Gum, and in 1950, added trading cards to its product line. Baseball cards appeared in 1951 and quickly became a vital part of pop culture, a tradition that continues to this day, and includes football (both American and European) and basketball, in addition to entertainment cards and stickers and albums. In July 2003, Topps acquired WizKids, LLC a designer and marketer of collectible strategy games. Topps maintains offices in Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, and Argentina, in addition to the U.S.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Catalyst Game Labs and Publisher Services Inc. (PSI) are pleased to announce they’ve entered into a new agreement. Starting in June, PSI will be the exclusive sales and fulfillment agent for Catalyst Game Labs.

“While we’ll miss the great people we’ve worked with at Alliance—Gabe, Danny, Tom and others—we’re excited to be working with PSI more closely,” said Randall N. Bills, Managing Developer for Catalyst Game Labs. “We’ve had a long partnership with PSI already. They’ve handled our sales into the large chain bookstores for years and in early 2009 they took over all foreign fulfillment. It made sense to move all of our sales and fulfillment under a single company. We’re confident this will enable us to serve our game communities better than ever.”

Publisher Services Inc. (PSI) is a leading North American sales and fulfillment service organization enabling greater sales for small to medium-sized publishers to mass market, book trade, and specialty retail channels. PSI objectives are to work with their publishing partners to optimize their presence in the broad marketplace and offer the highest quality products to PSI retail customers.

As a full-service, “turn-key” sales and fulfillment operation, PSI works as a sales force, in-channel marketing consultant, warehouse facility, shipper, and collections agent… allowing publishers to focus mainly on product creation.

Dean Burnham, President of PSI, said, “PSI is excited to expand our relationship with Catalyst Game Labs and to build on the success they’ve already had with their product lines. While this change allows PSI and Catalyst to work closely on all sales fronts, it won’t change the way in which the retail markets are used to accessing product. Catalyst products will continue to be available through traditional distribution markets.”

Look to www.catalystgamelabs.com for future announcements concerning this exciting development!

Catalyst Game Labs

Catalyst Game Labs is dedicated to producing high quality games and fiction that mesh sophisticated game mechanics with dynamic universes-all presented in a form that allows beginning players and long-time veterans to easily jump into our games and fiction readers to enjoy our stories even if they don’t know the games.

Catalyst Game Labs is an imprint of InMediaRes Productions, LLC, which specializes in electronic publishing of professional fiction. This allows Catalyst to participate in a synergy that melds printed gaming material and fiction with all the benefits of electronic interfaces and online communities, creating a whole-package experience for any type of player or reader.

Publisher Services, Inc.

In 2001, Publisher Services, Inc. (PSI) was born from the growing market demand for quality entertainment products. We recognized a gap in the marketplace between the creators of great products and the fantastic retailers looking to meet the needs of a growing consumer base.

We formed client relationships with a select group of high quality manufacturers of board games, card games, role-playing games and toys. Today, PSI is the exclusive distributor for a selective list of top game, toy and entertainment manufacturers.

PSI developed a unique business model and blossomed by following a carefully managed path to ensure the utmost level of service to its manufacturing partners and retail clients. As a market-focused distributor who offers business and marketing strategy to each of its publishing partners, PSI has a growth strategy that is likewise focused and targeted. This is not a volume-driven business, but a specialty service that analyzes market trends to enable our publishing clients and channel customers to capitalize on market demand.