Ace Darwin's Whipits

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My incarnation of Ace Darwin's Whipits circa mid-3050s.

I've always liked this unit, and it's a prefect dumping ground for my 1-off paint jobs as well. I've decided to give my band of Whipits a bit more personality and as such, all of the Mechwarriors have callsigns painted on the back of their bases. They're also much more highly skilled than my usual horde of 4/5 noobs.

Their callsigns.

What follows are the little backstories that I've come up for each of my named mechwarriors.

Ravyn: The only female mechwarrior in this lot, she's a former (and at best fair to middling) Solaris jock who competed in several smaller leagues but never hit the big time. Her immaculately maintained yet stock SHD-2H is always painted jet black, which goes with both her hair, and some would say her heart (though not to her face mind you). Side note: The spelling of her name is done in the same manner as an old, long lost friend of mine from a few decades ago. 

Yankee: Yankee earned his name a few years back when fighting Screech's Nova Cats. I had two new Enforcers in bare resin, one grey (and now in my St. Ives lance from the prior post), and the other in blue resin. Dubbed Rebel & Yankee respectively, their performance was at best adequate though my mercs were taking a beating under the withering hail of superior clan pilots and technology. Then Yankee managed a lucky roll and put an AC-10 round thru the cockpit of either a heavy or assault omni-mech, and turning it's trueborn pilot into goo. The mech was painted within a week and the name stuck (unlike Rebel's).

Yankee's ENF-4R has been upgraded with an aftermarket SLEP package. The mech has been reskinned in ferro fibrous armor which shaved a half ton off of it's overall weight, and yet still having enough armor plating left over to reinforce the mech's rear torso armor to something almost approaching respectable. The remaining half ton was utilized by added CASE to the AC's ammo bay.

A glamour shot of Ace's both famous and customized Pink Panther. 

Ace: Canon backstory.

Here's a better look at their Pink Panther paw insignias. 

Hopper: I don't have much on Hopper other than to say that if on hearing his name the somewhat disheveled sheriff from Stranger Things comes to mind, then you're on the right track. His stock GRH-5H is nothing fancy, but like his Netflix counterpart, he's both a good guy and generally gets the job done.

Ronin: Ronin's a veteran/deserter of one of the renegade DCMS units that revolted during the Ronin war. Rather than fight in a glorious if suicidal last stand as Bushido would dictate, he instead took the pragmatic route and somehow managed to flee into exile as a mercenary. Unlike Ravyn's SHD-2H, Ronin' has been modified. The head mounted SRM-2 has been swapped out for a 2nd medium laser, and the weight saved by the removal of the SRM's ammo was used to add an Artemis IV targeting system to the LRM-5. 

I also have a Wasp on the way (and the rest of the lance that it comes with it, though only the Wasp will join the Whipits). Color scheme and name for the Wasp and it's pilot are still to be determined. 

Seven more mechs cross the finish line!

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Huzzah! It should be noted that the Wolfhound in the middle finished first. 

Its always good to get some more minis added to the finished painting stage! As you can see above I finished up the last three mechs in my army for the Lyran Alliance's Dixie CTM. While in back is a medium lance for my St. Ives Cheveau-Leger (Light Horse). 

First up the Cixie CTM:

No Lyran formation is complete without a Hatchetman (some would say Atlas, but I don't currently own any of those monsters). The Wolfhound is in the middle, my first ever for one of these mechs, and a Hunchback rounds the unit out on the right.

This is a custom refit of the HBK-4N. Arguably the worst of the original Hunchback variants, This 3D print came with a pathetically wimpy AC-5 gun barrel (more akin to the Uziel's machine guns). So I swapped it out for a Team Yankee minigun out of the bitz box and came up with a record sheet that swaps out the AC-5 for a RAC-2 (which conveniently is both the same weight and has the same range!).

My apologies for the crummy lighting in my basement, but...well it is a basement. Here is my entire painted Dixie CTM force, a combined arms, reinforced company. This by far the largest painted formation in my entire Battletech collection!

Next up is the St. Ives' Cheveau-Leger:

This lance is the first of three planned for this army. Left to right is an Enforcer, Jagermech, Vindicator and lastly another Hunchback, this time an HBK-4SP.

The basing on these three look like the ruins of an aerospace port, or perhaps a mech staging area. The Hunchback meanwhile has the ruins of a bricked building on it's base. 

The camera's flash doesn't really do these any justice (again in the basement). I wanted to show these with the originally painted Urbie, which is the first of four. Depending on the era, the St. Ives Military Compact can either be fielded as a stand-alone nation, or as part of the Capellan Confederation's Armed Forces (which requires LOTS of Urbies!!). 

When obscure militias collide!

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There seems to be heavy traffic in the Valley of Death.

Kushial  and I managed to get in a game this past weekend. I only took a handful of pics that are below as he intended to post a battle report I think...

My Dixie CTM  force gathered up for a glamor shot.

Kushial's Ozawa (aka: Yowza!) Urban Defense Brigade,

deployed on what he was calling 'Fort AC-10'.

Both of our initial deployments. The (shallow) river was just counted as difficult terrain so that the tanks wouldn't be hamstrung in their movement options.

Early on with the fast movers out in front and the infantry deploying out of the heavy APC on the island.

Optimal range = a short ranged bloodbath. Also known as a place where that Commando seriously did not belong!

I won't post any spoilers in regards as to who won in hopes of a future battle report via Kushial. It was fun to play a game in which every model was painted (as opposed the Alpha Strike game being played behind us, in which nothing was even primed!).

This week in random paint jobs (part 2)

 

One of these is not like...anything else...ever.

As stated in part 1, bereft of a game to play this past Saturday evening, I opted to clear some of the half painted stuff off of my desk, the Battletech portion of which you can see above. 

Parallel parking a 20-ton mech is an absolute bitch!  

Hot feet! Hot Feet!

This is a Locust C for my Hell's Horses Iota Galaxy. The Locust C, is a refit of a captured inner sphere mech refitted with Clan weaponry for use by solahma (2nd line) mechwarriors. Given that the Iota Galaxy's mechwarriors are generally considered to be dezgra (honorless scum) its really notta bad ride. 

I've designated this class of Frankenmech the WTF-o7.

No weapons face the rear though you can see the remote sensor dispenser's ejection port at the lower waist. Naturally, said sensors have long run out with no hope of resupply. 

This...thing, was gifted to me by Kushial and I had to look it up Sarna to figure out what it even was. Frankenmechs exist only in the periphery where proper mechs are all but impossible to come by, and what few mechs that are there, are little more salvaged wreckage augmented with whatever scrap and spare parts that can be found. 

Once they reach the heavy-to-assault weight class, they're often referred to as 'Corsairs', though I'm just sticking with 'Frankenmech' for my WTF-o7. It's outfitted with an eclectic array of weaponry, armor values that vary across every location (with no consistency what-so-ever), and a half dozen or so wasted tons due to cannibalization, jury-rigging, and shit just no longer working yet not worth the effort of removing (like that sensor dispenser).

This one will be piloted by an Errant mechwarrior, basically the sole defender of a planet. A few of these Errants were the first victims of the Clans when their invasion entered the deep periphery, leading them to believe that the Inner Sphere had degraded to little more than techno-barbarism. 

Anyways, the WTF-o7 will likely fight alongside my piss-poor periphery mercs Battle Rattle. I'll probably toss in a Podunk PDF tank or two and some infantry to round out the points for a game.

Enter: The Self-described 9th Level of Hell

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The fist almost looks to be disembodied in front of the backdrop.

In recognition of being the MVP from my last game, I painted my primed Hellhound mech. However, rather than paint it in Snow Raven colors to match the already painted Shadow Hawk C, I instead painted it in the colors of one of my all-time favorite of BattleTech units: The Hell's Horses' Iota Galaxy, whose members refer to the unit as the ninth level of hell. 

The 'fire' was surprisingly simple, just requiring a bit of patience to allow each color to dry before adding the next.

The Iota galaxy is the worst of the Horses' least respectable warriors, the trouble makers, discipline problems, and problem children. Just my kind of unit! Honorable tactics are about as common in Iota as ethics and scruples. 

Lacking any unit colors barring just plain black, the mechwarriors and vehicle crews have taken to painting their machine with fiery motifs for no other reason than that they simply can. 

I knocked this mech out in under an hour which is quite a bit quicker than painting literally anything GW.

I'm debating on whether or not I'll keep the Ravens' Epsilon painted minis, or if I'll adjust their teal blue sections for fiery blue flames instead. 

The Battle against the Mech that shall not be named

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The following battle report is of my game vs. Kushial that we played Saturday night. Kushial said that it's been at least three years since we've played Battletech against one another and while I find that hard to believe, I gave up on trying to find a battle report on here of the two of us playing a game. 

We played our usual 8k points at the local FLGS on one of their 3D printed maps which was really quite a treat! He was fielding the Lyran Alliance's Donegal Guards whilst I had the Clan Snow Raven's Epsilon Galaxy. 

Both sides deployed.

Moving up the center with a Shadow Hawk C and Hellhound, my pilots started to question their superior technology in the face of all of the massed tonnage and firepower before them...

As my Star Commander's Adder drops off it's load of Elementals, the mech that shall not be named is spotted and a furious exchange of gunfire ensues. The Adder loses that fight as virtually all of the enemy mech's fire connects with the Adder's right leg (while it's UAC-5 rounds fly off into the ether)!

On the rest of the board, my fire was a bit of a mixed bag, with the Shadow Hawk likewise taking a LOT of damage to it's right leg whereas I seemed to be carving thru his right torsos. Then of course there was the piranha, blazing away with lasers and a dozen machine guns a turn and hitting with just one MG on average before his Valkyrie jumped away again. 

The Mech that shall not be named outmaneuvered me following a mistake on my part, and dishonorably kicked the Adder's already crippled leg, destroying it and removing the mech from the game. The Shadow Hawk took command as it was painted, only to lose it's leg a turn later. 

Command then fell to my Primed Hellhound which had the most surviving paint left in my force (and was also inflicting the most damage overall). Here it unloads in the the Mech that shall not be named while in the background the Elementals and piranha collectively sandblast about 40 points of armor off of the sides of the Donegal Black Knight! As heavily armored and undamaged as the Knight was, it merely found this experience to be irritating.

The Hellhound punches thru one of the side torsos of the not named mech and hit the SRM Ammo, obliterating it and avenging the fallen Star Commander! He hoped that this act would inspire his remaining troops...

However it was not to be as the piranha, dreadfully overheated due to an engine hit, tried to duke it out at point blank range with the Donegal HBK-4P. A dazzling exchange of 8 medium lasers vs. 12 MGs and an ER small laser ended in the only obvious result.

At this point my 2 remaining Hellhounds (of which the unprimed one had lost half of it's weapons) bugged out, leaving the 4 remaining Elementals for dead. 

As crushing of a defeat as it was, this was still a fun game and I'm looking forward to vastly more frequent games with Kushial in the future!

The latest off of the painting table...

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Comstar and/or the Wobblies in the back row and a pair of tanks for the Dixie CTM in front.

These three mechs literally took no time at all thanks to GW's white contrast paint. The Flashman on the left was a repaint as was the chunk of a commando that is being overtaken by the flora on its base. The Archer in the middle, is my chief negotiator when it comes to past due phone bills and pleas to not nuke one's homeworld from orbit (again). Lastly the Vulcan on the right will serve simply as a distraction/harasser. These three flesh out my Level II which already has a pair of Crabs and a Sentinel.

Meanwhile my recently painted Steiner scout squad was seriously lacking in brute force and more importantly tonnage. These two PPC variant Brutus assault tanks correct those concerns, as will the still WiP Manticores in my painting queue. As always, there is a matching heavy APC in the works as well for the hauling about of their token infantry platoon.

Starting off 2023 with a fighting retreat...

I know everyone is planning on a glorious victory, however dead mercenaries collect no pay checks!

'There is no way that I am getting

paid enough for this job...'

I got together with my buddy Screech for an 8k game of Battletech this past weekend and what follows is sorta how it all went down (I say 'sorta' as my battle reports aren't the most detailed). 

The Buffet Assault Group was fielding a fully painted force, with nothing in the way of advanced tech outside my Commander's custom CGR-SB with 4 tons of comms. equipment generating a 3 hex ECM field. Turns out we were playing ECM incorrectly so the few Streak SRMs that failed to connect should have. In hindsight, I ought to have stuck with the stock model and it's fourth large laser. 

Screech's Steiner force was sporting his trademark 'fresh from the factory' grey and probably 3060s era tech. We'll just say they dug deeply into all that the Helm Memory Core had to offer. 

The first few turns were mostly uneventful maneuvering and dodging the corrosive environmental effects of the map. The Catapult would spend most of the game on it's high perch, lobbing 30 missiles down range, and on average connecting with about 9 per turn. Typical.

One of my Stingers, ran into a Shadowhawk whilst trying to sneak into the backfield. The Shadowhawk would remove both of it's arms (and all of it's weapons) in this exchange, and the Stinger would flee the field in the following turn!

Screech pondering his next course of action.

The charger and Hunchback (the AC-10 version) leading the charge and tangling with his Marauder and Warhammer!

On my other flank, the 8-Z panther and 2nd Stinger get into the Wolverine and Warhammer's rear arcs, where the torso armor is thinnest, and where they would instead only hit arms and legs...

Realizing that they're outclassed, my commander starts her slow, exonerable retreat. Walking backwards while firing most everything would be how she more or less spend the rest of the game. The hunchback on the other hand was happy to remain stuck in, guns blazing in all directions!

Collective fire from multiple mechs started to punch holes into the Warhammer resulting in 2 XL engine hits. When rolling to avoid a heat-induced shutdown, Screech rolled a snake eyes and the Warhammer went dead!

Dishonorable mercenaries as we are, my forces had no qualms about shooting the stricken mech!

The Warhammer took enough hits to knock the inert mech over. Karma is a bitch though as my Hunchback also needed to make a piloting check to avoid falling, however my pilot lost consciousness following a pair of SRMs to the head. Rendering the check a moot point, and down it went as well. 

My Charger, heavily damaged by this point gets an attempted assist from the Catapult  which fired and missed with all four medium lasers. 

The Warhammer powers back up and presses it's attack. With only 1 functional PPC, it was more or less heat neutral despite the engine hits. The Scouts hang back to guard the Hunchback and it's still snoozing pilot. However the Wolverine dumps everything into the Panther's side torso, hitting its SRM ammo and vaporizing the mech!

The Hunchback struggles to it's feet, and in a brutal exchange both the Warhammer and Hunchback are destroyed! Not pictured but the other stinger tried to run cover for the horrifically damaged Hunchback and lost an arm along with taking a spread of SRM hits to an otherwise pristine scout mech. 

My custom Charger. Ya gotta love the CGR-SB, proving once again to be an excellent 'zombie-mech' that refused to fall. 

At that point it was almost midnight and my force was spent. The Panther and Hunchback were both vaporized by ammo explosions, the two Stingers had a single arm between them, the Charger was an absolute mess as you can see above, and the Catapult had taken a few good licks as well (and it's ammo hoppers were almost dry!).

On the other side, Screech's Warhammer was so badly torn apart that it may as well have died to an ammo explosion. Both the Marauder and Shadowhawk had taken a fair beating, though the Wolverine had only taken minor-to-moderate armor damage, and so would be able to escort it's comrades home with no trouble at all. 

Not mentioned above but worth mentioning: My Hunchback was modeled with the two right torso medium lasers facing the rear. Rear mounted weapons are usually derided as situational wastes of tonnage. However, stuck in the middle of a brawl, those two lasers were blazing away, turn after turn, indeed neither of us could recall a game in which we had so much rear weapon usage. 

In fact, following the loss of one of it's arms the the autocannon, moments before it's fiery demise, the Hunchback was actually more dangerous in the rear arc than it was the front!

All in all it was a fun brawl!

This is not the Steiner Scout Lance you are looking for...

 ...nope, no Atlases here!

(although the Urbies are just as slow)

Its a new year and as such I'm starting off with a new color scheme and unit. This lance is painted in the colors of the Lyran Alliance's Dixie Cavanaugh II Theater Militia (aka: Dixie CTM). I chose them more for the color scheme than anything else. Their unit history involves mainly garrison duties, static defense against raids, and losing to superior forces. 

The above lance clocks in at a paltry 2600 points, which is well below our usual 8K point limit. Luckily, the true Steiner mentality of compensation via sheer tonnage comes shining through via their as yet to be painted, accompanying heavy armor lance. Lastly of course, there will be the usual infantry platoon and APC to round this force out.