Generals study logistics...right?

 o/

Here comes the maintenance platoon!

(...and somewhere Screech is twitching...)

So far this week I've finished up some support vehicles that, while technically armed, are really more like objective type of units. Sure, they're not really sexy or anything (well, Nick 2.0 was rather impressed with the Savior), but they are still pretty good to have around. Notably, the J-27s are painted for Desert Horde, bringing that mob's vehicle contingent up to 21 vehicles in total. The Savior just has a generic appearance. 

Just a bunch of gear heads...

The business end that gives your mech a hug, awww. 

The J-27's trailers were painted (differently of course) and glued to the landing pad as I didn't like the look of them crammed on the base with the tractor. 

My first completed model of 2026 and other updates

 o/

In an annoying Ai voice: 'We're sorry, your package has been lost in transit...'

I bought this wrecked Triumph Dropship terrain piece back around Thanksgiving, started paint it around Christmas and finished it earlier this evening. I'm rather pleased with it:

The print lines across the nose are a little rough but can be chalked up to damaged incurred on landing.

There is a nose art decal on this, but it is so obscured by dirt and debris that I ought not have even bothered.

The rear cargo bay hatches and engines. 

It was used in a WiP state in my game played last night vs. Nick 2.0. I had my Marian Hegemony III Legio vs. is fantastically painted Arkab Legion. Needless to say, I have also lost my first game of 2026. Having gotten that out of the way early in the year: Onwards to victory!

Baxter the pregame-terrain piece, warming up the table. You can see the WiP Triumph about midway up the table.  

The Arkab forces flee at the sight of the Neeka Kaiju!

The Arkab Legion passing the also WiP savior repair vehicle which is working on a defunct PDF Urbie.

The final close quarters scrum, it was at this point that I threw in the towel. The Dervish and Blackjack were in decent shape, the Hermes II was little more than a free roaming flamer, and my Cyclops and Clint were both down. 

Nick 2.0's Arkab Legion...or well some of them. I know he also has a Javelin painted up, and likely two more to flesh out second lance. 

Speaking of games, I also finished the Clan Solahma star I was working on the last time. which fought just before Christmas in my last game of 2025. That game was a brutal slugfest. I didn't know how well they'd fare against mechs, being the clan equivalent of Bulldog tanks (i.e.: average speed, over-gunned and under armored).

I added a point of Clan heavy assault jump infantry to these. 

Unlike Bulldogs however, Oros have clan er-medium lasers, large pulse lasers which are backed up by LBX20s. I lost all 4 tanks with no infantry/Elemental losses. Nick only lost a Phoenix Hawk but everything else on his roster was in dire straits. Had we not called it, we both agreed that it could have gone either way were we to continue. However it was getting late and with both objectives contested, we settled on a draw. 

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.