Two more for the Horde

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You will pass the potatoes!

I've been a little burnt out on painting mechs here of late, and so these and a few other half painted mechs have been knocking around my desk for awhile now. To be honest, all but one of them are at the ready-to-be-inked stage. As I was inking some Star Wars minis this weekend (visible here), I added these two into the inking batch in order to push them across the finish line. 

Looking down the business end, a sight few survive unscathed. 

Mech # 14, the arm also shows a few kill marks which may, or may not have occurred during it's previous career as a Dark Caste Bandit. 

The Starslayer was previously painted for my Dark Cast Bandits, but I stripped and repainted it for my Desert Horde. It will most likely be used as the STY-2C-EC as I have been wanting to field this oddball variant with a force of pre-Clan invasion Nova Cats. 

The sight of a Hoplite usually doesn't alarm an opponent, this one might though...

I couldn't resist the adding the checkboarding on this one, making this the only Desert Horde mech to have any sort of decorative flourishes. 

As this model is armed with a PPC (either a standard of ER model), I carefully trimmed off the AC-10's ejection port and covered the area up with more checkerboarding. 

The Hoplite has been modified using an LRM-15 launcher from reddogminis to serve as a HOP-4B, and/or the far more dangerous HOP-4Bb. This came out well enough that I may order some more hoplites and repeat the process for my Wolf's Dragoons. 

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.

 

Hell's Horses Iota Galaxy Part 2...3...ish?

 o/

Honestly, I think the paint job on the Clan Demolisher came out the best of all of these. 

I finished painting up this force just in time for a game of Classic with Kushial and his favorite Eridani Light Horse this past weekend. The Clan Demolisher and Stinger C's were repaints, the Demolisher just had a generic urban camo scheme that matched nothing else and the Stingers were previously painted for The Buffet Assault Group itself. 

The light tanks are from Microworld Games and used as counts as Mithras light tanks. The actual Mithras mini looks more like a tracked and turreted farm tractor to me than a proper tank. On the tabletop the Mithras lasts about as long as a farm tractor as both died to a single volley of fire. Granted, in one case said volley was all 40 LRMs (seriously WTF?) fired from an Archer!

These three would not survive the coming battle...

I believe Kushial will be doing a more in depth overview of the game, so I just have a few pics here. This list is set up more for Alpha Strike as one of Frankie's preferred 'fast & the furious' type lists. In Classic, with all 4/5 pilots and crews save the Hellhound which had a 3/5 pilot, the above list came out to 8000 points even.

My army's MVP by a mile!

In Alpha Strike, again with all skill 4 pilots and crews, if I drop both of the Mithras tanks, the list comes out to 142 points. That leaves enough left over to boost 1 mech up to a level 3. While the Demolisher isn't fast, it is furious, having fired a dozen AC-20 rounds and hit with all but two! Only one was a cluster round and we didn't even get to that as the target had already disintegrated.

In the end the Demolisher only had a few nicks and scratches, whereas everything else still standing on the board had had the living shit kicked out of it!

The latest...repaints?

Watching idly as someone is bathed in nuclear fire...

Well okay, the Flashman isn't a repaint, but those two Whitworths are. These are painted now to serve as  former SLDF mechs who stayed behind and post-exodus, turned to the mercenary life (tentatively named 'Battle Rattle'). These three aside however, all else is still quiet on the Battletech front. I did get some more 3D printed mechs, but am waiting on bases so they're just kinda sitting in a little pile at the moment.