Hills!

 o/ 

Just a quick post, nothing flashy this time around, but oh so essential: hills. 

Nick 2.0 printed these for me aways back along with several buildings, six of which I have painted already. While I have plenty of buildings and stuctures, and even enough trees for a full on forest, these are my first hills. These were just an exercise in dry brushing with some flock added to break up all of the shades of brown. 

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!

'Are you painting a Wafflehouse for your game?'

I was quoting my wife with this post's title.

The 3050 financial reports are in and sadly we have bad news for our investors. This was to be the year that Dunkin Davions would move on from dominating just the breakfast pastry industry, and proceed to conquer the fast food market as a whole! 

First quarter sales started off strong, but by late spring things started to take a turn. Here now at the end of the fiscal year, hundreds of locations have closed across the realm's northern edge. Or at least we think they have, its hard to be certain given that HPG communication with so many occupied worlds has been lost...

Note the occupiers, on patrol around the perimeter. The other three from the squad will become basing decorations. 

It looks suitably out of business I think. 

I've had both the hotdog mech and the Dunkin Davions bouncing around in my collection for years now. The building itself has been in the background of many of my battle reports, and I once painted another hotdog mech for my buddy Rob who owns a Dairy Queen. I don't recall him seeing the humor and that mech is probably buried under the seat of his truck, or the like.

The dumpsters are of course Capellan green rather than Davion green. 

This was my guinea pig model for my new AK streaking grime. For my first try on a not so good 3D print (the building, not the mech), it came out alright I think. I was going for the grimy, out of business look for a building in a city wracked (wrecked?) by the smoke and fires of war. 

Also, I know I said in my last post that I would be showing off some painted KS minis in this post. However I wanted to post this off as I just finished it, so those will have to wait till next time. 

 

Battletech in the burbs.

 o/

Not all trees are pretty and symmetrical.

lol, not until I put them on a map did I realize that these two aren't orientated quite the same as the other, larger buildings.

As is illustrated here...

Whelp...these took a lot longer than I thought they would, but in the end I'm rather pleased with them. All of the buildings are numbered for potential objective purposes. These add a good bit of line-o-sight blocking terrain. 

There are several geometrically shaped greebles to add visual appeal I guess. As such I painted them in a variety of bright colors to break up the grey and in hopes of looking like a housing developer's idea of a 'happy place to live'. 

To the trees!

Wait, one of these is not like the others...

A close up of the Heavy Tracked APC lurking above that I painted recently.

I also based 15 trees/shrubs to serve as light forests. Basically any hex within the outline counts as light forest. Plus a few shrubberies to complement the buildings. I'm sure I'll add more foliage bases to this collection in the future. 

All of it together, adding a lot more blocking terrain to what I had previously. 

The ubiquitous Battletech Baxter pic. If the table top comes off, he has to be right there to get in the way...

Tentatively I have a game set up for tonight, so hopefully I'll have a battle report to post here in the near future.  

The residential district

 o/

Here we see a Hetzer wheeled gun 'in the wild' and praying for the blind deployment rules that we don't use here locally...

I'm still here, not dead just nothing happening on the Battletech front for a good long while. That said, Steel Warrior Studios is moving to a new location and hosted a sale in hopes of having less stuff to physically move. I took them up on the offer and picked up another small set of terrain. 

Shoo! Go away! Don't look at me!

This is not the mech you're looking for, move along, move along...

These residential buildings will make for an interesting little warren of close quarters, urban warfare. Listed as 'slums', these new buildings will give my little spaceport something it desperately needs: residential housing, retail shopping would be good too (I'll get to that in a minute...). They're all capable of blocking mechs, my Urbie especially as you can see, and the tanks simply disappear behind them. 

Note the Dunkin logo is still in the wrong spot here.

These will likely replace the vast majority of my tiny little MDF buildings which all too often end up being knocked about the map, often getting in our way as players rather than functioning as obstacles for our mechs. 

oh...yeah...like that...

The centerpiece of this purchase is that galaxy spanning, food processing retail empire we all know and love: Dunkin Davions! Yeah a note on that...initially I thought the Dunkin Davions sign was to go on top of the building, so braced it in that position. Only until waiting for it to dry and get all good and solid did I consult the website and see that it's placed across the front of the donut. 

Idiot. 

Oh well, its fixed now. No idea as to when I'll get another game in, maybe after these are painted but hopefully before. 

Happy Terrainsgiving!

o/

All of these pieces are from Hardware Studios.

I've just been a dry brushing away on my collection of 3D printed terrain here of late, and am making pretty good progress me thinks. I know the red and grey fuel tank was pictured in my prior post, but it seemed only fitting to include it again with the rest of what I've painted since. 

The black splotches represent battle damage resulting from my all-too-frequently inaccurate shooting...

The stenciling for hex bases on the roof of the vehicle bay was done by taping down spare bases with blue painters tape and painting the lines in between them. Originally, I had painted the building in red, blue and purple of the Free Worlds League, but I didn't care for the look. So, I went back over it heavily in grey. The latter is still barely visible giving the impression of paint that has largely flaked off over the years.

As you can see, ryza rust has been my friend on all of these pieces. 

Lift off in T-minus 10, 9, 8...

I didn't add a hex grid in on the landing pad as the Dropship is always parked there in game. As such, the four corners, and landings on the ramps are the only places a mech can sit without fear of wobbly model syndrome. 

The dropship is from Hardware Studios as well, whereas the bunker came from Steel Warrior Studios as a free bee with my last order! 

I have a hardened bunker and the Dropship itself left, as well as an older bunker and liquid storage tank that I'll likely be giving a repaint to, to match this newer terrain as well as my urban map sheet. 

Tanks! All sorts of tanks...

o/

I thought I'd preempt the inevitable Tanksgiving posts that will flood the blogosphere next week with two recently painted 'tanks' of my own. 

First of all, more over Steiner and your puny Atlas based scout lances, the Şoarece proves that no one can waste resources like the Free Worlds League can! 

Note the Şoarece's dirty appearance
from a recent river crossing. Due to
it's weight, few if any bridges can
support it. Luckily though it has a
limited amphibious capability. 

A rolling 175 tons of Seriously, what the fuck were they thinking?, the Şoarece is a nigh impregnable mobile fortress, slathered in 40.5 tons of armor, and moving at a whopping 18.5mph (on solid ground, going down hill and with a good tailwind). It has mixed autocannon armament that's...theoretically good at all ranges, and in practicality kinda worthless, backed up by a lone nose mounted machine gun. 

Fewer than 100 of these monstrosities tanks were built before production ceased, thus the roman numeral XIII on the front hull is actually the production number rather than any sort of regimental or unit marking. Also, due to their enormous size, at the time of manufacture Şoareces were christened with a name, much like naval vessels. 

This particular one was Christened the Warhound, and has a canine rampant decoration on both the port and starboard sides. However crews and regimental commanders alike quickly dubbed it The Dog due to its sluggish mobility and both anemic and mismatched weaponry. Most of it's career was spent in static defense and on parade duty.

In 2913, The Warhound went in for an overhaul and rearmament to (hopefully) silence the incessant complaints of the armored brigade commanders who despised the machine. The AC-2 and AC-20 were removed and replaced with a pair of AC-10s, giving the tank a triple mount of identical guns.

Whilst a bit more useful, The Warhound was now essentially a slower, overweight, Star League era Alacorn.  Commanders, resigned to the fact that there was no fixing the tank, continued to use it as little as was possible, until the tank was mothballed a mere two years later. The Warhound was reactivated a few times however, to serve as a stand in for a hostile, grounded dropships without actually risking damage to an actual dropship in large scale live-fire field exercises.

*****

And then there's the other tank. Its a 'not a fuel tank Screech!'  that I recently purchased a pair of from Hardware Studios. Its all drybrushing and I cranked it out in about 15-20 minutes. I'm quite happy with it and despite being intended for Battletech, is large enough to be useful as a LoS blocker in 40k/KT as well. 

The Robotech minis the Kickstarter backers ACTUALLY wanted...

o/

THIS! This is what we wanted out of that infernal Kickstarter!!
Also of note is the new Hardware Studios terrain in the background (funded by the sale of 40k minis).

By now, regardless of whether or not you were invested in it or not, everyone ought to be well acquainted with the clusterfuck that was Palladium's Robotech Tactics Kickstarter. Heh, after looking up that link, I checked on the now 103K+ comments of vitriol and hate to see that folks are STILL commenting on there...lol. It's done guys, get over it. Really. 

The mech itself is feather light and the wings are translucent, but ought to be fine even if you drop it...maybe.

Besides, Kids Logic now has the license and is making the minis we had hoped for in the first place! Unless you actually wanted a Warhammer that came in 30ish pieces rather than 3-4...

Really crisp detail. 

For instance, I ordered a Phoenix Hawk Battloid mode Veritech as a test purchase. $15 total with shipping direct from Hong Kong that took maybe a week and a half total. The mini had ZERO flash/mold lines and was 3 pieces that went together in minutes. 

Fits perfectly on the Gamecraft base which is the standard hex size. 

The only trimming was removing the pegs on the bottom of the feet so I could put it on one of my Gramecraft minis' hex bases. This was more or less a 'test purchase' (being justifiably wary after the KS), but now that I have it there will likely be another coming in the future as right after I ordered this they released the Warhammer. 

ALL UNITS, SUPPRESSIVE FIRE!!

o/

Unfortunately, 'suppressive fire' isn't really thing in battletech, but I'm going to assume that that was the erroneous order issued forth by my mech commander in order to justify the otherwise atrocious inaccuracy of my mechs' shooting Thursday night. 

Oh sure, I did hit the enemy now and again...however in all but two specific instances during the WHOLE game, my shooting was an exercise if futility. Indeed, most hits seemed to be by accident rather than design. Admittedly, Screech's gunnery skills weren't much to be praised either, however mediocre is still vastly better than atrocious!

I'm not sure what the Free Worlds League is paying these schmucks, but it's clearly too much!

My TBAGers were running a demi-company consisting of an an assault lance made up of an AWS-8R x2, STK-3H, AS7-RS, and a medium lance using all three of my HBK-4N2 refits, as well as a Stinger STG-3R refit that upped the armor to that of the 3G, and swapped the MGs out for a single small pulse laser.   

On the other side of the board, Screech had a mixed star made of 4 points (8 tanks) of the base model Joust, and his star commander piloting a Thor/Summoner, who clearly shat in some Khan's cornflakes to be tasked with leading a bunch of tanks into combat!

As such this won't be as much of a bat rep at as it will be me showing off my WIP city map/board, whilst lamenting about the inability of my force to even kill fucking tanks of all things!!

An overhead view of the battlefield. All of the little MDF buildings are now painted. The cardboard blocks were intended to be temporaries until I got more terrain, but they make for excellent line-of-sight blockers. So I think I'll just keep them, prime and paint 'em up a ruins. 

The Marik Militia's vehicle park. The problem with a parking lot is it creates a vast open space. However using it as a tank park broke it up nicely, not to mention being the TBAGers' employers, they couldn't simply step on them, making  that lot into a bit of an obstacle course as well. I periodically tried to activate the tanks but Screech would have none of it for some reason...

The view from the other side of the board. Screech was running late (as usual), so while waiting I used a spare base to trace a hex grid on top of the cardboard bricks in he event that any mechs jumped up there. It was a bit crude but usable, and in any event none jumped up there. Once these bricks are painted up, I'll redo the hex grid with a bit more care than this go round.

(In my best Star Wars Imperial Officer impression): Ah yes, our first missed shots of the day...

Gratuitous Dropship pic. Still super happy with this though I have yet to paint it or it's landing pad.

Okay, 1st excellent gunnery incident: My Stinger jumps 6 hexes into the rear arc of two Jousts, firing and hit with both lasters! Unfortunately you've no doubt seen the two other jousts that did a quick reverse in direction to get rear armor shots at said Stinger. Screech was salivating at the prospect of 16 LMGs taking it apart, however his 1st shot, an ERLL hit the center rear torso and killed the mech in 1-shot! Normally, players are thrilled with 1-shot kills, but Screech looked totally crestfallen as all of those LMG gun barrels slowly spun to a halt, unfired.

The last savage exchange of fire, shooting lots and hitting little. Just off to the right and sadly not in the photo, my other Awesome connected with both LRM15s and its large laser with no less than an 11 for any rolls! As usual the missle clusters were kinda meh, but whatever it hit at least.

As for my mechs above, collectively about 1 weapon in 5 actually hit their targets, though I did at least get a box cars roll on the cluster chart for the lone LRM20 of the Stalker that hit. That aside though, many, many civilians no doubt died horrible deaths.

*****

In the end, my Hunchback on point as badly beat up and the one mech I lost, the Stinger, I fully expected to as it was the cheapest thing on the board by a vast margin of points! the Stalker's left torso was exposed meaning had we gone another turn it would have tried to hide to dump the SRM ammo in that location before continuing on it's bonsai charge! Lastly the Atlas' left arm was in ruins but otherwise was doing fine. The loss of the laser in said arm would have eliminated and future over heating issues. The rest had just a few minor dings with one Awesome and Hunchback each leaving the board untouched!. 

On the other side, Screech's Thor had taken a few decent hits, but no internals . Whereas his collection of tanks ranged from untouched to crawling off of the board trailing busted track links whilst a few drivers struggled thru multiple, stacked driving penalties! One Joust also lost it's weapon's stabilizer in the last round which would have been an issue had we continued. 

So it was kindova draw I guess. 

The dropship has landed!!!

Okay first up, a bit of a USPS rant here. I commented on my prior post in response to WestRider on how my last birthday purchase was circling the state of Tennessee due to the US Postal Service's gross inefficiency. The approximate driving distance my package had to go was about 1000 miles. In the end, thanks to tracking I saw that my package went about 2400 miles (and the box looked certainly looked like it upon arrival). Luckily there was lots of bubble-wrap and all arrived intact!

The 3d printing resolution is pretty good, with print lines really only noticeable on the top of the shuttle itself.

I'm super thrilled with my dropship and landing pad from Hardware Studios!! I opted for the smallest of their dropships (it's about 3.5" in diameter) due mostly to budgetary concerns so its too small to carry mechs. Instead its more of the K-1 Dropshuttle size, making for a good objective and line-of-sight blocker. It also sits perfectly on the landing pad. 

Extra gratuitous pic for no other reason then just because.

As for the pad, its quite large (9.5" x 5.5") and will occupy the space near the parking lot on my new battle mapsheet. It has an open slot on the side for a switch if you're one with the technical prowess (I am not) for LEDs or the optional magnetic setup that allows the shuttle to hover above it. The latter is quite cool but also quite expensive ($79.95 on amazon). 

These paint up in just minutes, its all dry brushing!

As you can see, these are all victims of my pilots/crews' stellar gunnery skills...

I also got some resin, textured bases for my mechs w/o the pewter tab between their feet and vehicles. I also bought two packs (totalling a dozen) 6mm scaled cardstock buildings from Gamecraft Miniatures. Whilst I certainly need more buildings beyond the pad, shuttle and these first few buildings, I'm off to a good start for my urban warfare setup. I have some Space Marines on ebay, and am hoping I can use some of the funds from those when/if they sell to also put towards more terrain (and not just bills).