It's got an axe! RUN!!

 o/

lol, these three are the latest to cross the finish line. The Axeman is painted to match my 5th Donegal Guards, and the two Howlers are for my newest faction: Clan Fire Mandrill Kindraa Mattila-Carrol (yeesh, that's a mouthful!). I also tried out some of my new AK diorama (basing) paints on these and am really happy with the results. 

Applied to a sacrificial base, it looks good as is.

However I added a sepia wash and once dry again, I drybrushed it with wraithbone and I really like the final result. So much so that I did just the same on my Howlers below.

First up the: Fire Mandrills. These howlers were previously painted in Jade Falcon colors, but were stripped and repainted. the rest of that JF star will go to the Desert horde where I will be able to field a stupid fast, second line binary.  As for the Mandrills, I just liked the color scheme, yellow with black & red trim. Though you have to be careful not to add too much red trim, or else you start to get McDonalds' vibes...

The outlandish, yellow, red and black almost work as a sort of camouflage in the desert scrub landscape of their bases.

The side of the Howlers that you most often see as these little fuckers run away at lightning speed!

Saving the biggest for last: the Axeman AXM-2N. This mech joins the Steiner Scout squad, and matches them reasonably well. Especially after I truncated the disasterously difficult painting of the 'scouts'. As such, I will add 3 more assault mechs to fill out a second lance, if not expand them further to an entire assault company (because Steiner).

Folks like to try and get in close to missile boats, but not this one!

Mech #6, I had to look up the number on the Steiner Scout Squad post to make sure I didn't duplicate the numbering.

Note the Jade Falcon Hunchback IIC-turned-stepping stone and the 'concrete' AK diorama paint.

 

Some random stragglers

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Frenemies?

No gaming for me this week, but I did at least finish off another lance's worth of mechs. That said, they are split amongst three different factions as you can see. 

First up, is a century for the Marian Hegemony's III Legio. 

All of the bases line up nicely. As much of a pain in the ass as that was, this bunch might not get any additional minis...

Corey' Cavaliers, up to a full strength lance, with not a decent mech amongst them (well, maybe the Charger).

Lastly the Cicada joins the ever growning Desert force (I wonder if it is too late to change their link/name to Desert Horde?). There are just as many tanks to go with these, plus a point of Elementals. Why Elementals you ask? Well I just reprimed the former Jade Falcon Fast & the Furious star in wraithbone. Meaning that along with the Mongoose and Mercuries, I'll easily be able to field a 2nd line binary with a minimum speed of 7/11!

This week's round up.

 o/

I just some random updates this time around. 

First up, Nick 2.0 and I played the rematch of the mission from my last post, with just the roles reversed. Again, this one was a lot of fun and while I only took 3 photos, it had a few memorable highlights. Sadly for Nick and fortunately for me, one (1) of his AC-20 rounds hit all game! That said, that one round deleted my Javelin from existance, coring out the CT with 2 points of damage to spare!

The odds of surviving 2 AC-20s at point blank range are 3,720 to 1!

Never tell me the odds!

That said, two of those missed AC-20 rounds, coming from the King Crab allowed my Charger CGR-1A1 to make it's first ever successful charge attack! Crossing 3 hexes prior to impact, it inflicted 24pts of damage on the KC (taking 10 in return) and better yet, the Crab failed it's PSR and hit the ground taking another 10 points on the way down. 

Later on, the final parting shot from my Shilone knocked the KC's pilot out for a turn. Laser fire from these two caused it to fall to the ground, where then a few kicks were delivered for good measure.

In the end, Nick's Spider and Centurion fled the field successfully, the mauled Hunchback was 1 hex away when we called it. While the poor King Crab managed to stand up from the pummeling going on above, it was soon immobilized and the pilot ejected.

All 6 are numbered in the event that they are used as objectives at some point. 

'Choppin Charlie's' chop shop seems to have suffered a fire and is in a serious state of disrepair. 

They're decorated with all manner of neon lights, decorations, corporate logos, warning signs and even the depiction of a church and scripture (which, given your point of view may also be seen as a warning sign...).

Speaking of Nick, he gifted me with some terrain that he 3D printed, and I painted up the first 6 of 8 buildings. There are also several mutli-level hills in the paint queue as well. 

A primitive Dervish (I capped off the lasers in the arms), a Clint and a flamer equipped Hermes, because what's the Marion Hegemony without some warcrimes, right? Right.

Lastly, I finished the first three mechs for yet another faction: The Marion Hegemony's III Legio or conversely, the FedCom and later Lyran Alliance's 4th Alliance Guards. The Marion's get 1st dibs as I have a Cyclops CP-11-H from the Black Remnant box in-progress (the one with all of the rocket launchers) for this unit, as well as a Blackjack to round out the star century of five mechs.

The numbering on the bases all line up nice and properly, even if the mechs themselves do not. I just need to make sure that the remaining mechs numbered 1 & 5 also line up accordingly. 

******

Also of note is that Frankie 16 today!

Since when is a Blackjack the game's 'Hero mech'?

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Take it! Take it bitch take it!

Nick 2.0 came over to my house for a game last week and he had a scenario all set to go. Prior to the battle, all the information I received was the following: 4800BV, Lostech era with at least 1 assault mech required for each force. 

The Scenario:

The attacking force's dropship took a hit coming in and the attacker's mechs were randomly scattered across the field in an emergency evac from the dropship. Over the middle of the board, a D6 for each mech was dropped onto the map and wherever a die landed, so did a mech. The defender would roll to see which long map edge side they would deploy from. Of the attacking mechs, the assault mech's navigational systems were damaged in the emergency drop, and so would need to be escorted off of the field to safety. All attacking mechs needed to flee the field on one of the short board edges, with the escorted assault mech being neither the first or last one off of the field. 

Points were also awarded for mechs that were crippled, had limbs blown off, etc., as well as destroyed and for those that successfully escaped.

The battlefield, with both sides deployed. 

We rolled and I would be the attacker. My 65th Lyran Regulars force consisted of: a Blackjack BJ-1, Whitworth WTH-1, A Javelin JNV-10N, a Griffin GRF-1S, and lastly a Charger CGR-1A1 (which, turned out to be rather fortuitous). Nick was fielding his wife's mercenary command (so why doesn't she come to play?) the Green Knights consisting of: a Spider SDR-5V, a Hunchback HBK-4G, a Centurion CN9-A, a King Crab KGC-000 and lastly (and for only 4 turns when darkness fell and it flew home) a Shilone SL-17.

Nick modified the aerotech rules a bit to make the fighter playable and it worked fairly well. Here is how the game went:

As (bad) luck would have it, the poor Whitworth would find itself all but surrounded on turn one! The Javelin tried to assist, but a few SRMs to the back didn't stop an AC-20 slug from hitting the Whitworth's CT!

Because the King Crab and Shilone weren't enough to worry about, the Spider and Hunchback were coming after the whitworth as well!

My Charger advances while in the background you can see the blinding flash of that AC-20 slug hitting the Whitworth!

Somehow the Whitworth survives, and after the Hunchback moves in front of it I, as Nick put it: 'took the bait' and moved into the Hunchback's rear arc while the King Crab moved in for the kill. 

While my Whitworth dumped the LRM ammo out to avoid any ammo explosions, it managed to score a rear torso hit on the HBK, though not causing any criticals. The King Crab meanwhile missed the Whitworth entirely, huzzah!

In the middle of the field, the Shilone roared overhead, striking the Griffin, as did the Centurion and Spider. 

In return the Griffin cinematically, fired in all directions, putting a large laser in the Spider's leg, almost taking it off, 3 or so LRMs into the far off Centurion and a single medium laser hit to the Shilone's aft!

We interupt this battle for a Neeka induced intermission. 

Then, the Griffin promptly rolled a snake eyes for it's PSR and fell down. It would take (2) attempts to stand back up, beating itself up in the process).

The fast moving Javelin prepares to lead almost as fast moving Charger off of the board!

Somewhere along the line the Griffin had hit the Centurion in the fight torso with it's large laser. As such it was at this juncture that more or less quietly fighting in the background Blackjack made itself known. 

Firing its quartet of medium lasers at the Centurion, it put 3 of them into the mech's right torso, going internal with 2 shots, and hitting the mech's LRM ammo, vaporizing it! 

On the next turn Nick lost the initative, and as my Javelin and Charger fled the field, the BJ-1 opted for a rearguard duty and moved in behind the King Crab. It put a few lasers into the beast and then 1 level up on a hill, delivered a kick to the KC's right arm!

As the Shilone flew overhead, heading out as the light faded, the Hunchback removed one of the Whitworth's arms, scoring Nick a point! The plucky Whitworth nonetheless stayed on it's feet.

While the Whitworth is no faster then the Hunchback, it is also no slower. Thus the heavily damaged mech ran away, keeping the AC20 beast at max range while the Spider harassed it for all it was worth. Despite the terrifying start to the Whitworth's game, it too would successfully flee the field. 

The 5/8/5 moving Griffin was doing the same on the opposite side of the board. Jumping over terrain and likewise holding King Crab at range. Here it is, all lined up for it's victorious run off of the board. 

Which brings us back to the Blackjack. Outnumbered 3-1 (and standing here in some heavy trees), having done most of the damage thus far, it too now had to make a run for it. 

Hopping hills and guns blazing, it had to resort to just a single laser into the spider, and then whipping the arms around to (unsuccessfully) try to hit the KC with it's AC-2s for a turn to bleed heat as it was at a +9 which is quite detrimental in this situation. Especially with AC-20 slugs hitting all around it!

It hopped the hill and did it's best to hide again while the massed AC-20s rearranged the landscape before it also was able to run off of the board at last!

Well, that was a rather crushing victory! I don't recall the points gifted for each mech off of the field but as Nick only had a single point due to removing the Whitworth's arm, the point was moot. My charger kinda messed up his scenario due to it's speed (it never fired a shot and only suffered a few medium laser hits all game). 

While it did not live up to it's name this tiime, I couldn't help but take a few extra pics of Nick's pretty paint jobs.

Note the detailing on the Hiunchback's base!

That said, this coming Wednesday we are playing this scenario again with the same forces, and the roles reversed. Given that my biggest guns will be on the Shilone for 4 turns vs. all of these AC-20s, we will see how that goes...

Corey's Cavaliers

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Securing my wife's tomato plants. Were it not for their basing, these would blend into her raised planter's bed and it's tomato seedlings almost perfectly. 

I don't recall when I first stumbled across this canon mercenary unit but it was quite some time ago. Like so many merc units in Battletech (and Space Marine chapters in 40K), they exist as a random name in a blurb, in a book. That's it. Their minimal background says they inflicted a serious defeat on the St. Ives Cheveau-Leger during the Lostech era, inflicting particularly heavy losses on their air lances. 

Shadow Hawk SHD-3H, which swaps out the SRM-2 for a pair of machine guns. The emblem on the torso marks this mech out as the lance leader. 

The suggestion of 'Kill!' is almost an oxymoron being painted on the side of a lowly LRM-5.

So, the defeated a regimental sized unit (or more likely a smaller detachment thereof) with air support? Did the Cavaliers have extensive AA units? Their own aerospace forces? Did a CGR-1A1 stumble across an airfield and simply run amok? No other details, really? No of course not, these fuckers don't even have a color scheme. 

Charger CGR-1A1, are those two kill marks on the torso? Or the number of mechs that stuck around long enough to get into small laser range? Note this mech is dangerously skirting the edge of a minefield!

The Wolf icon really looked cool on the pauldron. Or, being on a Charger, perhaps its a more sarcastically applied dog...

Well, they didn't until the Unit Color Compendium created one which is about as official as this bunch is going to get. Also, for those that don't know, my name is: Corey, and decades ago when I was in the SCA, my persona was of a Cavalier, so I'm almost obligated to paint some of these up. Also, the UCC color scheme is both striking and pretty easy to paint. 

Rifleman RFL-3N: the epitome of mediocrity, especially as the AA mech that it was supposedly designed to be. 

With their only known action being well within the Lostech era (another favorite of mine), I opted to make my first lance for the Cavaliers (I rarely stop at just one...) as what my old buddy Hoss would call a Lostech FUBAR lance: All crummy/mediocre mechs that are thrown into a front line role because there is nothing else left. Thus far I only have 3 mechs painted for this lance of Corey's Cavaliers, but the fourth (a Vulcan) finally arrived in the mail and is now in progress.