Corey's Cavaliers

 o/

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.