Monthly Roundup...

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I'm still alive, Things just kinda slow down around the holidays. That said not all has been idle as you can see below:

My Turkey mech made its annual appearance just prior to Thanksgiving. Not only did it manage to survive its game (it is more of a fast-moving gimmick than a threat), but as you can see from this screenshot, it went vaguely viral on Facebook.

Baxter, as usual was 'helping' me set up for a game vs Nick 2.0. 

Usually, once the table is set up, Bax wanders off, but this time he chose to sleep on the edge of the battlefield. I literally deployed around him! As we were setting up on the table's edges, the units that got the free.... uh, movement due to deploying forward were a Suburbanmech and a platoon of hover infantry. Thus, any bonus movement was more or less rendered negligible. He slept there thru the whole game. 

My current project: a generic clan Solahma star. The Oro tanks and elements above are all ready for inking. Still not quite sure what I am going to use to flesh out the rest of the star though. 

*****

In the likely event that this is my last post of the year, I'd like to wish all of my readers...yes, all 14 of you (on average) a Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukah, a Glorious Day of the Emperor's Ascension, a Happy New year and/or a happy whatever else it is that you celebrate this time of year! 

The Four Urbanmechs of the Apocalypse

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Yes, the Golden Urbie is the lance leader.

I noticed recently that my Chisholm's Raiders/Lone Wolves company had collected a trio of urbies. Previously it was two which isn't all that bad. However, after the addition of The Buffet Assault Group's Urbie in their now obsolete color scheme (foreshadowing), Urbies amounted to a third of the Raiders/Wolves' mech compliment. That kind of tactical inflexibility is best reserved for either my Capellan Homeguard or a stand alone force. 

Running with the meme...if not the actual Urbies.

Thus I decided to split them off into their own separate meme lance. The fourth, urban-camo Urbie was painted specifically to fill out the roster. You can laugh all you want, but one never knows which variant of mech they are facing until it shoots. So were I to field these as a lance of UM-R70s, I am sure that any mockery would evaporate the moment a volley of 24, AC-5 slugs went spraying in all directions. I would imagine that following said 1-trick pony act, these would be immediately be elevated from a joke, to high priority targets. 

Tread carefully my friend...

Normally we don't play in the eras that the UM-R70 is available in, so more than likely these will be a Suburbanmech merc lance with the golden suburbie being the UM-R100 prototype. This scenario is far more likely to happen on the table top than the R70 lance. 

This week's round up.

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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!

New Shadow Hawks

 

Let's just get this out of the way up front: Shadow Hawks suck. There, I said it and with that out of the way let's move on. 

I bought these from Reddogminis.com (who is having a sale it seems, so more minis are on the way). These two (three actually, I have one set aside for Nick 2.0) showed up within a week and flawlessly cast. Plus there are two arm options allowing for slightly different posing. Not much more to say than that so I'll just show off some my pics of these two. 

Alternate  arm options

I left the LRM-5 off of this one and covered up the SRM launcher to use as a Primitive Shadow Hawk. 

The Desert force Shadow Hawk, painted, sealed and ready to get dirty...

...and dirty it is! Slathered in the AK streaking grime. 

After a 10ish minute pause, the excess grime is removed via mineral spirits and severl Q-tips and here ya go! Easy peasy (and why the desert force has exploded in size so quickly). 

The primitive got the same treatment, but it is not as noticble on OD green as it is on the wraithbone primer. This one is painted for my 65th Lyran Regulars.

Callsign: Daisy, with the decals to match

Yes Votann players, it is a daisy. Get over it.

Finished Desert Force Shadow Hawk.

The 9th mech in the unit, there will be a full mech company in no time!

And they said Nuln oil was liquid talent...bah!

Two more, ready to go!

This week's roundup.

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The new Charger sculpt reminds me of something, but I just can't quite place it...

lol, as you can see, I painted up my new KS Charger. I love the Charger, its one of my favorite minis, and it will be one of the two mechs that I will be fielding in my local FLGS' upcoming 3020s era, Solaris free-for-all event. 

Bob's Boomerang, your morning commute's eye in the sky!  is reporting heavy foot traffic on access lane 4...

Those large pauldron armor plates are screaming for a logo of some sort! 

Originally, I was thinking of running the original CGR-1A1 as it is a true zombie mech in that the head, Center torso and legs are the only things to worry about. Well, that and I was hoping to try a charge attack, where if the stars all correctly align, the Charger can mete out a whopping 64 points of impact damage (in 5 point increments)! 

 That 'charge maneuver' might work...once. Then, after my poor, hapless target was cartwheeled across the field following its 80-ton impact. I would likely be shot by everything still left on the table (and the winner is the last mech standing). As such, I'll go with my good ol' standby Zombie-Charger, the CGR-SB Challenger. 

Post Solaris event, I'm not sure who will get this mech, be it my deep periphery Mercs: Battle Rattle, or if it'll gain a pink paw print and join my still winless Ace Darwin's Whipits (I was thinking of bringing Ace to the event purely for style points, even if it is out of his era). Or possibly just start a new faction altogether like the DCMS' Dieron Regulars, allowing me to field this as a CGR-1A9.

Queue Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries...

The one on the left has a bit of foliage stuck to its turret, apparently it got a bit too close to the treetops!

Run away!

The counter rotating props give these a very Russian KA-52 vibe. I have a feeling that they will be just as ineffective in combat as their real life counterparts...

I also painted up my Warrior attack VTOLS. These make my TBAGers the first (ever) unit of mine to have its own air support, meagre as they might be. These look to easiest to field in Alpha Strike, and will likely be contained to just that form of BattleTech play. Actually on second thought, I'll try one of these out in a game of Classic tomorrow night. I'll let ya know how that turns out.   

All together!

Lastly, I also got my first Steel Haven campaign game in. It was a lot of fun even though I lost the snatch and grab scenario. All damage was free to repair for the first game which is good as my Assassin suffered an ammo hit and was obliterated! While my mech will be rebuilt for free, I am down one mechwarrior as there wasn't enough left of that guy to even bury. 

The Buffet Assault Group and 4th Syke Rangers pose for a pre-game, full company photo op. 

'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. 

 

A Hokie post to start off 2024

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Happy 2024! Currently (as in the time of this posting) the Southern Snowpocalypse ought to be in full swing, which ought to amount to 2-3 inches of snow. Yes, by all means laugh at us as the region shuts down and chaos on the roadways ensues.

I had intended this to be painted in Jade green in honor of the Jade Turkeys, but my son had other ideas...

Its been a bit slow here on the Battletech front here of late, though I have a few updates. First up, The VTH-1 Hokie battleturkey -mech. This STL was released back around Thanksgiving by Hardware Studios and I bought it intending to make a Jade Turkey mockery-mech. I believe Bishop Steiner himself even came up with stats that would ensure that this bird would be cooked if it alpha-struck with all of it's weapons! 

As Frankie only plays Alphastrike, I'll use the stats of the Firestarter FS9-M for this. That is armed with twin medium & small lasers, and a pair machine guns which match this mini's poultry paltry weapons array.

As this rocket booster of a backend will attest, it also moves 12" a turn and can jump which he ought to like. There was a slight misprint, so I painted that up as battle damage.

Frankie however is a HUGE Virginia Tech fan (for those not familiar, their mascot is a Hokie which is another name for a turkey) and instead requested that this be painted in their colors. As such he was thrilled with this and has claimed it for future use.

As of yet, I have no idea which unit will be blessed with this mech's addition...

*****

Next up, I painted up a Golden Urbie that I had intended to use as a plinth mounted, monument-terrain piece to honor the Urbanmech and all of it's gloriousness. However suitable mounts are stupid expensive. As such, it instead it joined Ace Darwin's Whippets under the callsign of 'Hero'. 

Urban warfare at it's finest. Note the fallen Grasshopper behind Hero. When it came to piloting checks, I apparently I couldn't roll higher than a 3 on 2D6 for most of the night. Several mechs fell as a result. 

Hero made it's combat debut which was anything but golden after it failed a piloting check and broke it's LBX-10 during the fall. Unable to flee, it stood its ground and blazed away with small lasers (neither of which missed, for what little that is worth) as it was hacked apart by Kushial's Hatchetman. 

Speaking of, Kushial ought to have a battle report up soon. However by game's end I'd reached the obvious conclusion that Shadowhawks just plain suck. The two which are in my Whippets unit are liable to be retired from service after two consecutive games of fruitlessly plinking away at the enemy with their crummy weaponry. 

The other other white meat?

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Nothing rustles up the local mega-fauna like a mech crashing thru the underbrush! 

Literally high-tailing it for safety!

While big enough to swallow infantrymen and even elementals whole (probably a lethal idea in the latter case), this native beastie clearly doesn't like having a Clan Snow Raven, Epsilon Garrison Galaxy (yeesh, that's a mouthful!) Shadow Hawk C walking thru it's territory! Indeed, even an apex predator knows when flight is better than fight!

Those little Protomechs in the foreground best watch out lest they get run over!

Yes, Protomechs. Deal with it Screech. The minis are Heavy Gear's CEF Flails that were somehow missed during the eBay sale of my CEF army years ago. Rather than field one of the fugly existing proto designs (well, the Roc looks fine), I instead made a custom design called appropriately enough the: Flail. 

It's kitted out as follows: 3 tons, 16 points of armor total, 4/6/4 movement and a micro pulse laser. They clock in at a whopping 84 points apiece. Which ought to be fun little distractions while keeping the 'Protomechs are OP and ruin the game!' whining to a minimum. 

UM-R68, The Anime Missile SPAM Urbie!

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Every. Single. Turn.

It's not quite WYSIWYG but...close enough (and better than most Battletech variants). 

The spent shell ejection port is instead a vent for excess missile fumes.

Anime missile spam, that's what this Urbie is all about! Dropping the big gun for an MRM-30, this little red Urbie is a beast! Unfortunately, I don't have a generic missile face plate that goes up to 30 holes tubes, but the LRM-20 face plate gets the point across. Assuming this works as well as I hope it will, I'm tempted to make another just like it!

Once the ammo hopper runs dry, this is what you'll see as it waddles off into the sunset..