A little bit o' paint, and another 20ish years to go with it!

 o/

One's fast and Nimble, the other is a slug.

I'm finishing out this week by showing off the latest two additions (which includes my 14th and final painted Urbie) to this blog's namesake command: The Buffet Assault Group. Last year the TBAGers lost their two Stingers to the Hell's Horses Iota Galaxy because the Clan refit of the Stinger is sooooo much better than anything the Inner Sphere has to offer. 

The unit icon is visible on the Phoenix Hawk's leg. The Urbie is sporting one as well in the same location.

Those losses dropped the TBAGers down to a mere 5 painted mechs, whereas now I'm one short (again) of a fully painted demi-company. These two unlike my other TBAGer mechs, aren't sporting any primer gray replacement armor plating and/or salvaged whole body parts from other mechs. This means that either (A) they didn't survive the Andurien Crisis contract or (B) came afterwards. I'm leaning towards the latter...

A pic from last night's Alpha Strike game in which my Blood Money mercenaries were unsuccessful in fighting off Screech's Name Pending© mercenaries. The biggest highlight of the game was turn three I think, in which we collectively lost 6 mechs!

I had been limiting the TBAGers lifespan from the 3030s to the 3040 or so. Meaning their first contract in support of the Duchy of Andurien was also their last. However, as we so often play in the Civil War era (3060s), this leaves them woefully outclassed technology-wise. As such, I'm thinking that they managed to somehow pull their shattered unit back together after being expelled from Marik space and survived as a (somewhat) functional command into at least the FedCom civil war.

A Hokie post to start off 2024

 o/

Happy 2024! Currently (as in the time of this posting) the Southern Snowpocalypse ought to be in full swing, which ought to amount to 2-3 inches of snow. Yes, by all means laugh at us as the region shuts down and chaos on the roadways ensues.

I had intended this to be painted in Jade green in honor of the Jade Turkeys, but my son had other ideas...

Its been a bit slow here on the Battletech front here of late, though I have a few updates. First up, The VTH-1 Hokie battleturkey -mech. This STL was released back around Thanksgiving by Hardware Studios and I bought it intending to make a Jade Turkey mockery-mech. I believe Bishop Steiner himself even came up with stats that would ensure that this bird would be cooked if it alpha-struck with all of it's weapons! 

As Frankie only plays Alphastrike, I'll use the stats of the Firestarter FS9-M for this. That is armed with twin medium & small lasers, and a pair machine guns which match this mini's poultry paltry weapons array.

As this rocket booster of a backend will attest, it also moves 12" a turn and can jump which he ought to like. There was a slight misprint, so I painted that up as battle damage.

Frankie however is a HUGE Virginia Tech fan (for those not familiar, their mascot is a Hokie which is another name for a turkey) and instead requested that this be painted in their colors. As such he was thrilled with this and has claimed it for future use.

As of yet, I have no idea which unit will be blessed with this mech's addition...

*****

Next up, I painted up a Golden Urbie that I had intended to use as a plinth mounted, monument-terrain piece to honor the Urbanmech and all of it's gloriousness. However suitable mounts are stupid expensive. As such, it instead it joined Ace Darwin's Whippets under the callsign of 'Hero'. 

Urban warfare at it's finest. Note the fallen Grasshopper behind Hero. When it came to piloting checks, I apparently I couldn't roll higher than a 3 on 2D6 for most of the night. Several mechs fell as a result. 

Hero made it's combat debut which was anything but golden after it failed a piloting check and broke it's LBX-10 during the fall. Unable to flee, it stood its ground and blazed away with small lasers (neither of which missed, for what little that is worth) as it was hacked apart by Kushial's Hatchetman. 

Speaking of, Kushial ought to have a battle report up soon. However by game's end I'd reached the obvious conclusion that Shadowhawks just plain suck. The two which are in my Whippets unit are liable to be retired from service after two consecutive games of fruitlessly plinking away at the enemy with their crummy weaponry.