u/CascadianGuardsman1

Image 2: 1st Company "Old Dogs", made up of Veterans and Mechwarriors who are born into the Company, can hail lineages back to when the Mercs used to be a SLDF Battalion.

Image 3: 2nd Company "Cat House" made up mostly of new blood, each lance is lead by a veteran/seasoned mechwarrior, they are the ones mostly sent out for contracts in the inner sphere, as 1st Company is either doing Jobs for the Magistracy or protecting their home base from pirates and Marion raids.

Image 4: 3rd Company "Armoured Corp." The Tank Company, used as a flexible force multiplier within the Battalion as they will Rotate Tank Platoons/lances between 1st and 2nd Company regularly.

Image 5: 4th Company "The Rocketeers". Like the 1st Company the mechanized Jump Infantry of the Regulators are some of the last vestiges of when the Battalion Followed Kerensky on the march to Terra and fought under the flag of Cameron. Holding themselves to a high standard the Infantry are a stark contrast to the more colorful mechs and mechwarriors.

Those were mostly minor lore blurbs for my guys, if anyone wants a summary for my mercs history you can ask, other wise thats it. I do have names for each lance and platoon but that would take up all the word banks for a post. I think.

The last 5% needed for the tanks and VTOL and INF are pin washing and some snow terrain to be added, overall though the units are table top ready, and fill the last slot of my fourth Company(tanks) for my merc force.

The VTOL and INF platoon will be attached to my third company(mechanized Jump INF). Or I will have them as a flexible QRF unit.

Camo inspirations:

Pike Tank (triple gun) is the 1980/90s woodland camo seen on Abrams and a image I saw of a Abrams with tiger winter stripes on the sides and glancing plates.

Partisan RAC Ver./Var. Came came from an image of a Abrams or a leopard tank i saw online, though that had paler greens, blues and a peach white colour hue over gray.

The two Zhukov tanks are just some winter/Alpine schemes I did, one is a weird take on the WW2 Japanese jungle scheme.

The other Zhukov has a more standard tiger stripe pattern.

Thoughts on my paint jobs?

This was a brutal brawl, that ultimately was my loss, but it was a good learning experince and I gave as good as I got.

My mechs (Melon's Regulators) started with a dispersed formation that in the long run, had tactically hampered me. While it was a good formation to keep my LRM Stalker alive and basically untouched for the entire game, the rest of my mechs got chewed up by the time my stalker actually got into position to do anything.

My opponents the 52nd New Castle Regulars, played well and as this was my first classic game didnt punish my mistakes as often as they could have but in the end they still won, bloodied and damaged but victorious.

It was a good match and helped me figure out issue I had with learning the system for classic, I am excited to play more.

HIGHLIGHTS:

My battle master almost caved in my enemies wolverines cockpit with a pistol whip from its ER PPC. Instead the cockpit was shredded of all its armour.

My Daimyo 2k and my opponents Jenner traded kicks where they just attacked each other's legs. This was of course after my Daimyo had its left torso exploded and by its weapons profile was put gunned by said Jenner for the rest of the match.

All of my mechs except the Stalker lost their left torso or arm.

Was my loss by attrition, while every mech on the battlefield was damaged, my guys were all a few lucky hits away from outright being destroyed. After discussing with my opponent and getting some others to give a impartial look over the battle, we agreed for my guys to throw up the flag and retreat from the battle, to save the what was left of our Battlemechs.

In universe snippet:

Battle ROM audio: Melon's Regulators. First contact.

UZL-3S callsign: Bob "hey lance lead, who did our contract say we were likely to fight? I'm getting sensor ghosts for heavy tonnage"

BLRG-1Gb callsign: Zoda "Marik Militia, green as grass cadets, Magistracy got the info from Local intelligence. Why?"

DMO-2k callsign: Abel "heads up, getting pings for heavy metal... Contact! Oh crap is that a Guass rifle!" *sounds of combat and shearing metal*

???: "so you're the mercs who have been causing problems, the 52nd New Castle Regulars welcome you. But this isn't a fight you'll win"

Zoda "break and engage! Don't get singled out these are Veterans!"

STK-6M callsign: Dale "start painting targets guys! I can't hit what I can't se- locked! Missles away!"

My Company of three Jump Infantry platoons ready to assist my Mercs in taking down clanners, pirates and anyone who pissed off their employers.

The heavy/standard APCs are indeed the Colonial Marines APC, tried my best to colour match to the movie but the green is a bit darker/richer.

Also I free handed the Colonial Marines icon on first Platoon, I think I nailed it.

Second platoon is "Lambda" Platoon.

And third platoon is just 3rd Platoon, has the Merc unit logo (Mori Clan Crest/Kamon. A Japanese clan during the Sengoku Jidai).

The lance's for my 1st Fusiliers Company are arranged by colour stripes/flash.

Command is Gold.

Fire support Lance is Purple.

Striker lance is Black.

Trying to think of a name for the Company but can't really settle on any that don't sound... too on the nose or lean on the Canopus and Magistracy memes.

Anyone have any ideas?

On Gold lance I put pin up decals. The Archer has a red moon with two goth style Geisha twins over it with the words double trouble under them.

The Wraith has a piranha games Fairy from the pin up #3 selection.

The Warhammer has a cowgirl(gunslinger type) from the #1 piranha pin up decal sheet.

And the Mad Cat has, a cat girl, specifically the one from the Canopus Cat house casino and buffet stickers from Astray3. With the words "Mad Cat" under her.

My clan/Empire Binary vs a Company of Mercs (The Sapphire Skulls), goal for my Seeker and Alpha galaxy stars to clear the field and find a SLDF relic, as shown in a necrosia induced vision.

Outcome: inner sphere victory, both of my Stars got bloodied and had to flee the battle after taking to many casualties.

Highlights: My opponents Spider hounded and follwed my Nova Prime for the entire game, was a fun cat and mouse side event.

My Atlas went fisticuffs with a wolf Hound, the light mech got folded but managed to jam it's fist through the engine of my atlas, which in turn did enough damage for a follow up shot from Eris to take it down.

My dasher was encircled after a daring rear attack to a Banshee. There was nothing left but a smoking crater where my dasher once was. in response. Lol.

And my Mad Cat had a shoot out with the enemy T-Bolt both mechs behind partially cover.

The shooting was like that naked gun shoot out gif/clip, those who know will get it.

For a first game I had fun and it was a close match with an early lead for me, now I just need to get a proper match of classic/total warfare in.

The old kitbash, is wider than the basic basilisk and not really well made compared to my other kitbashes.

And now that I have a HH basilisk that I can run as also a thunderer tank destroyer or leman russ vanquished, I am thinking about transforming my kitbash into a chimera, or something analogous to it.

While I appreciate the effort I took to make my kitbash I know I can do better now.

Do you my fellow gaurdsman think my old kitbash can be remade?

Would a chimera be a wise choice, is there another vehicle I could redo it as?

Please let me know, this has been in my head for a while now.

Also I don't have any paint remover and I varnished that kitbash, I might just re prime it and paint over but I think I might just chip the paint off slowly.

The best painted mechs so far that I have done i think ate the Seekers with the Delta Galaxy Camo Scheme from when they were still Goliath Scorpion.

Though I am very happy with the bases for my FedSuns, while a bit messy the free handed streets look great at a distance.

Also it was fun free handing the 1st crucis lancer logo on all the mechs for the Davions. The Davion Star/coat of arms on the Pheonix Hawk was also fun to free hand i think it turned out great.

Any advice or input on how to get better at freehand art besides constant practice?