Been lurking for a while (This is my first Pinside post). Took delivery of a new BM66 premium in October (my first pinball machine!). Figured I'd post some thoughts/impressions.
Quick note after spending last night doing some needed maintenance (~500 games in):
* Wiped down playfield, used Novus 1 in areas where ball wear/marks were obvious (in/out lanes mostly).
* Waxed/manually buffed the playfield with the smallest amount of Blitz One Grand to get adequate coverage (Thanks to the maintenance threads here for the recommendation!).
* Inspected/cleaned balls (none needed obvious replacement).
* Adjusted left Batphone target (only the target directly under the bat phone had been registering).
* Updated to latest code.
Impressions after doing this: Holy crap. This game now plays *fast* compared to stock out of box. I've been watching the Deadflip streams and have wondered why my machine seemed to play so much slower than Jack's, and I imagine it's because his playfield has been waxed. It's a bit *too* fast now (had an auto plunge on a ball save sail into the back board once), but I imagine after some play that this will calm down a bit. It took about 10 games before the left riddler orbit shot would stay in the bat signal scoop without bouncing back out from the velocity. Ball spin is a bit of an issue now as well, with the ball sometimes reacting in a similar manner to a bowling ball on a waxed lane (reacting strongly to the spin).
Some general impressions of the game:
* The depth of rules keep this game consistently interesting. I find that i'm making minor villain choice strategically based on where I am in the game (If I'm on ball 3 or late on ball 2, I'll usually go with Shame for points/shot multipliers rather than the standard Bookworm->Freeze->Profit! progression. *Love* how deep the rules are, and can see how there are "modern classic" discussions happening around this game.
* Haven't quite broken a billion pts yet, but have had a couple games in the ~800 million range (on v.99 code).
* With the increased speed after playfield waxing, I'm terrible at this game. Have barely broken ~100 million a couple of times. It really is a completely different game now.
* Dimples. Everywhere. Becoming less noticeable as more show up, though. It was a bit shocking at first, but as more show up, it's obvious that outside of putting down a full plastic protector before playing a single ball (which I don't think is practical for most), I don't see how these could be avoided at all (some pics below).
* Art Blade installation: *much* easier with 2 people. If you're waiting to install these, my advice would be to solicit help and go slow.
* I've got a ton of mods waiting to be installed, but don't want to make massive playfield changes all at once. Will be adding these over the next few weeks, one at a time.
Overall, in *love* with this game, and it's inspired at least one other pinball purchase (Waiting for confirmation of delivery of a MBr some time in Jan.). Will continue posting impressions/thoughts as I start to mod the game in the next few weeks. Happy to be part of the club!
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