Ace Darwin's Whipits

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My incarnation of Ace Darwin's Whipits circa mid-3050s.

I've always liked this unit, and it's a prefect dumping ground for my 1-off paint jobs as well. I've decided to give my band of Whipits a bit more personality and as such, all of the Mechwarriors have callsigns painted on the back of their bases. They're also much more highly skilled than my usual horde of 4/5 noobs.

Their callsigns.

What follows are the little backstories that I've come up for each of my named mechwarriors.

Ravyn: The only female mechwarrior in this lot, she's a former (and at best fair to middling) Solaris jock who competed in several smaller leagues but never hit the big time. Her immaculately maintained yet stock SHD-2H is always painted jet black, which goes with both her hair, and some would say her heart (though not to her face mind you). Side note: The spelling of her name is done in the same manner as an old, long lost friend of mine from a few decades ago. 

Yankee: Yankee earned his name a few years back when fighting Screech's Nova Cats. I had two new Enforcers in bare resin, one grey (and now in my St. Ives lance from the prior post), and the other in blue resin. Dubbed Rebel & Yankee respectively, their performance was at best adequate though my mercs were taking a beating under the withering hail of superior clan pilots and technology. Then Yankee managed a lucky roll and put an AC-10 round thru the cockpit of either a heavy or assault omni-mech, and turning it's trueborn pilot into goo. The mech was painted within a week and the name stuck (unlike Rebel's).

Yankee's ENF-4R has been upgraded with an aftermarket SLEP package. The mech has been reskinned in ferro fibrous armor which shaved a half ton off of it's overall weight, and yet still having enough armor plating left over to reinforce the mech's rear torso armor to something almost approaching respectable. The remaining half ton was utilized by added CASE to the AC's ammo bay.

A glamour shot of Ace's both famous and customized Pink Panther. 

Ace: Canon backstory.

Here's a better look at their Pink Panther paw insignias. 

Hopper: I don't have much on Hopper other than to say that if on hearing his name the somewhat disheveled sheriff from Stranger Things comes to mind, then you're on the right track. His stock GRH-5H is nothing fancy, but like his Netflix counterpart, he's both a good guy and generally gets the job done.

Ronin: Ronin's a veteran/deserter of one of the renegade DCMS units that revolted during the Ronin war. Rather than fight in a glorious if suicidal last stand as Bushido would dictate, he instead took the pragmatic route and somehow managed to flee into exile as a mercenary. Unlike Ravyn's SHD-2H, Ronin' has been modified. The head mounted SRM-2 has been swapped out for a 2nd medium laser, and the weight saved by the removal of the SRM's ammo was used to add an Artemis IV targeting system to the LRM-5. 

I also have a Wasp on the way (and the rest of the lance that it comes with it, though only the Wasp will join the Whipits). Color scheme and name for the Wasp and it's pilot are still to be determined. 

Seven more mechs cross the finish line!

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Huzzah! It should be noted that the Wolfhound in the middle finished first. 

Its always good to get some more minis added to the finished painting stage! As you can see above I finished up the last three mechs in my army for the Lyran Alliance's Dixie CTM. While in back is a medium lance for my St. Ives Cheveau-Leger (Light Horse). 

First up the Cixie CTM:

No Lyran formation is complete without a Hatchetman (some would say Atlas, but I don't currently own any of those monsters). The Wolfhound is in the middle, my first ever for one of these mechs, and a Hunchback rounds the unit out on the right.

This is a custom refit of the HBK-4N. Arguably the worst of the original Hunchback variants, This 3D print came with a pathetically wimpy AC-5 gun barrel (more akin to the Uziel's machine guns). So I swapped it out for a Team Yankee minigun out of the bitz box and came up with a record sheet that swaps out the AC-5 for a RAC-2 (which conveniently is both the same weight and has the same range!).

My apologies for the crummy lighting in my basement, but...well it is a basement. Here is my entire painted Dixie CTM force, a combined arms, reinforced company. This by far the largest painted formation in my entire Battletech collection!

Next up is the St. Ives' Cheveau-Leger:

This lance is the first of three planned for this army. Left to right is an Enforcer, Jagermech, Vindicator and lastly another Hunchback, this time an HBK-4SP.

The basing on these three look like the ruins of an aerospace port, or perhaps a mech staging area. The Hunchback meanwhile has the ruins of a bricked building on it's base. 

The camera's flash doesn't really do these any justice (again in the basement). I wanted to show these with the originally painted Urbie, which is the first of four. Depending on the era, the St. Ives Military Compact can either be fielded as a stand-alone nation, or as part of the Capellan Confederation's Armed Forces (which requires LOTS of Urbies!!).