Project: Recovery

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Covid recovery always involves working on minis for me. 

The past week good ol' Covid decided to stop by & ruin my week for a third time. While I powered thru the best I could at work (I work remotely, so can still push buttons on a keyboard despite feeling like death warmed over). Luckily the fam didn't get it, though they did get...something. The Mrs. was none too happy as my telehealth visit got me some really good drugs whereas hers, not so much.

Anyways, despite the glorious weather outside this past weekend, I didn't do a whole lot out there aside from chilling in our adirondack chairs. When in post covid recovery you tend to get really tired, really fast as so many folks know. That said, I did do a fair bit of painting as you can see above and below. 

You'll note that several photos were taken out in the yard. Why yes, I did lay down in the backyard to take these as any, self respecting 49 year old gamer would. The Mrs. rolled her eyes and the teenager ignored me outright & the dog thought THIS IS GREAT! Or rather he did right up until he got yelled at for stepping on my toys. Clear coat for the win!

A Patton/Rommel for my generic Desert Force that is sucking in units like some sort of fucking black hole!

A second Patton/Rommel as well as a Drillson for my 1st Chisholm's Raiders which is once again a home or my orphaned units and random paint jobs (as the Raiders lacked a coherent color scheme). 

A point of Elementals for the Desert force in case I run my lance of  old Star League mechs as a 2nd line star. Likely as Nova Cats as all of their Galaxies always use appropriate camouflage. 

The Raiders' mech lance made up of survivors from my defunct Comstar/Wobblies and St. Ives formations. I opted to try and tie them together with repainted base edging and a shitload of decals!

40K Ork checker and triangle stripe decals work GREAT on mechs!

Hit 'em Hard The motto of most any Hunchback variant. The Space Wolves paw looks nice on there too. 

Vulcan, not seen in this pic though you can see it above, are the checker stripes across the tops of the shoulders. Also on the MG arm is says Buzzsaw in the same script as the Hunchback's Hit 'em Hard. 

This mini was actively on eBay when is was saved after performing admirably in a game where it was used as a primitive Archer. The decals came out great on this one!

Holy Camouflage Batman! It is a good thing this has blue markings & a brightly colored base, otherwise it would disappear into the background!

Three more models are also in-progress, but I'll save them and whatever else for a fututre post. I'm also hoping to reschedule a campaign game this week coming after cancelling last week due to my case of the black death. 

This week's mechs

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The grab bag continues...

I think one of the things that I like about BattleTech is that I can complete forces before I really get bored of them. I mean, I paint more or less everything piecemeal, barring the occasional burst of impetus with one faction or another in 40K. However when painting random models here and there for 40k, there's little feeling of accomplishment because so fucking many are needed for a damned army of any appreciable point value. 

Whereas with BattleTech, I really don't foresee any of my forces exceeding a company (or maybe a binary for the Clans) in size. Often its a combined-arms company/binary which further breaks things up. Also, in BattleTech, its rare to have too many multiples of the same model. For instance, the lowly but beloved Urbanmech is my most common mech at 14 models, with only 7 in the same color scheme. In 40k, in most cases that's not even a squad!

But anyways, enough pointless rambling! What you see above and below is what I (finished) painting this week. I say finished as I still have another lance's worth in-progress. 

Marik Militia Marauder & Chameleon

The Marauder always was, and still is a pretty mech, all the more so now that it is painted! 

I know that my buddy Neverness loathes BattleTech, but I am sure he grew up on Robotech as much as I did, and would most likely be at least a little nostalgic about this model. Even if only in secret...

Both of these mechs are stomping around on their not-so-friendly neighbor's planet. 

The Chameleon is primarily a trainer in the fluff, but I am hoping that it will be a decent mech in battle.

Its mostly energy weapon load out is supposed to train pilots not to overheat their machines. Well, unless they're in point blank range, I doubt all those small lasers will even fire, much less over tax the heat sinks!

Painting that old Imperial Guard icon in blue, under these mechs was a real treat I can assure you!

Meanwhile in the periphery...

The Masakari T of the Scorpion Empire is the whole reason that this mech was painted in their colors. It mounts the perfect blend of Clan & Inner Sphere tech, with just a splash of periphery garbage to round things out. 

It mounts 2 Clan ER PPCs, 2 plasma rifles with 3 tons of ammo, and most importantly, a circa 1950s era rocket launcher 10!

Oh good, he/she didn't step on their little friend!

Also in the periphery...

This Retrotech Griffin is the newest acquisition of my deep periphery, piss poor mercs: Battle Rattle. Built to primitive standards, yet refitted with a large laser and MML 5 with 1 ton each of LRM & SRM ammo, it wields a missile launcher far more advanced than any other mech in my Battle Rattle force. Yet, it is of course built on a woefully obsolete mech, perfection! 

Its a little hard to see under all of the grime, but it says 'Kill!' on the gun arm. 

I was tempted to fit this arm with modular armor to match the model (this arm is clearly much better armored...well, at least visually), but the negatives vastly outweighed any appreciable benefit. 

This coming weekend is the FLGS' Solaris event. While I have a 'list' of 2 mechs to bring (TOP SECRET: on the very outside chance that any of my opponents Saturday read this), you know me. Meaning, I'll likely be pondering alternative builds from my collection right up until the last moment!