r/NormalBattletech

Currently I am working on a heavy lance with generic IS blue and white colors.

I thought I might share some of the process wirh you.

This far I panel highlighted the minis like a fancy armor model builder with my airbrush. After this step there will be a step with paneliner / Oilwash and then edge highligts and of course weapons/ sensors and cockpits.

What do you think abou dark orange for the cockpits?

Though for the most part the Robinson Battle Academy was destroyed in 3144, Baroness Colleen Sandoval realizes she can’t solely rely on Mercenaries to protect Robinson and the Draconis Reach. Diverting mechs from Robinson Standard BattleWorks, she worked to build up her militias.

<enter a bit of unofficial head canon speculation>

Choosing select commanders from among the surviving Robinson Ranger and Striker units, she quickly formed training lances ahead of the complete reconstruction of the Robinson Battle Academy. Forming these small training cadres, she had them training and housing with employed Mercenary forces and their respective landholds. By doing so, Sandoval gets both more seasoned and loyal troops overseeing her thinly stretched forces.

These are two such lances training in urban exercises.

Big Illician Lancers project off the bench! Some metal minis, clanners and BA next :)

Some minis I painted for my first AS Game.

The Pink Pirats want to be seen and strike fear in the hearts of their victims with their flamboyant color.

I though about a group with a lot of old and cheap Mechs and a lot of weak but fast wheeled tanks. Afterwards I found out, that fielding that much fast and cheap vehicle can be considered an unfair roster. But honestly I built it for the joke of beeing a force that can't even afford proper Battlemechs.

I went with round bases, because I like them more and will only play Alpha Strike and Horizon Wars anyways.

Just left the official CGL discord this morning because I saw yet another server rules update saying you could be banned for things posted elsewhere.

I've already stopped posting anywhere official because I have 3D prints and 3rd party models all throughout my collection (stuff mostly acquired before any but metal options were available for most things), and an item in the BACKGROUND of an image got my posts deleted before.

The toxic positivity and rabid political grandstanding besides that have just driven me so far away from anything official. I have my sexual preferences, I have my political views, but I'm not interested in parading that around in a hobby space!

Anyway. Have some pics from my recent games.

They had already their first encounter in a game of Alpha Strike against some periphery defense forces.

I put them on round bases because I like it more this way and do not plan to play BT classic.

Posts are the lifeblood of a sub-reddit and I haven't contributed. My thanks to all of you who have, and I wish you all happy Battletech-ing! Here is photo of the only use I found for one of the many Mackies I have.

I've been hosting semiweekly games of Alpha Strike for several years now, and I've been gradually growing my collection of terrain. It's always easier to get people excited to play if the game table looks cool!

Shared here are various pictures of tables I've had set up both at the local game shop and games club, and at a couple small time local conventions where I've hosted games.

So far I have grasslands, desert, snow, urban, and jungle terrain, and I'm working on a volcanic table and possibly a shell cratered no man's land type table. I could probably supply a whole tournament myself, I just don't have the players to organize that much. 😅

Weathered up Keshik Silveroot.

Painted a Bushwacker inspired by the colors of a Eurocopter Tiger since I thought the angular cockpit sort of looks like an attack helicopter's. I also painted a large laser's blue glow inside the right arm weapon's barrel because this is supposed to be a custom variant with two (IS) large pulse lasers. Freehanding that tiny sword and sunburst (left lower leg) was a bit hard.

My first time painting bt minis to a higher standard. From the beginning, spoiled by warhammer, I always thought bt minis fell short on quality, super round edges, massive mold lines. Still think that for some models. But never gave them a chance before.

Spent a total of about 5 hours on this one. And I’m fairly happy and supprised by the result. I’ve gotten most my forces out the way and plan to make some small teams for alpha strike. Perhaps I’ll try harder on each of these and have a great looking team.

Mech Scale Leopard.

So I finished the first one a few years ago, but I learned a lot since then and I'm going to build this one out the way i should have done the first. This is the "sci-fi mech facility" from Monday Knight Productions. They still sell it on their website. The first one, which is the last Pic, I bought in the 90s. This one I purchased around the beginning of this year and I'm finally at a point I'm ready to build it out. Any suggestions and of course C&C greatly appreciated.

Someone asked me about the details of this model so I'm going to break down all of the dimensions, as well as the lessons I learned from the first model.

First off this is the "sci-fi mech facility" from Monday Knight Productions. You have to go to their resin terrain, 6mm terrain, old 6mm index page. Current price is $30. Dimensions are all listed in the first two pictures. With the exception of 2. The wall thickness is .25 inches, and all of the small garage doors are .75 inches wide. All measurements were taken with a digital caliper(thank you automotive work).

Now some lessons learned. This is an extremely simple model. It's literally two boxes attached to one another with some details. The model comes with simple overhead style garage doors, and .25 inch thick divider walls. It should come with a rear wall as well that had the same "corrugated" detail, but the new one I purchased from Noble Knights didn't have it. Not too big of an issue as I prefer the extra space from the smaller wall. Each of the 4 garage bays are 1.7 inches wide. So install your divider walls centered on those lines and you'll have even bays. I'm using .06mm thick styrene wall as it provides enough durability to hold everything together. The pieces at the front are .25 inch wide and have space behind them which I'll explain next.

Now I've got two professions I work in. I'm in construction and I serve in the military. This colors my design choices and ideas. I primarily work large scale government projects, specifically mil bases. One of my projects was an aircraft hangar(last 3 pics) Now considering the scale, the doors for these types of hangars make perfect sense for a mech bay. Thus the pockets in the sides for them to accordion into. You can also see how the overhead doors are set well back into the wall and not right at the exterior(if you buy the resin one you can cut them out like I have)

Now the interior. I was largely inspired by rocket assembly facilities like the VAB at NASA, or the new Amazon project comet building on Cape Canaveral(helped build this one too) large bridge cranes in the ceiling make sense for working on equipment. Gantries that move in and out if position to work on vehicles(mechs in this case) with hazard paint for warning. Large steel interior support beams(small styrene rods, square and round, as well as thin styrene sheet for floors) The more details you can add the better. You can find detail pieces for model ships that are in the 1/300 scale for railings, stairs, and possibly greeblis. A facility this size will have exhaust fans for fumes and fresh air, along with large electrical boxes for external power supplies. I used this idea on the far right hangar with the mech under repair with the large red power lines coming from the wall. I also had the idea of a turntable in the floor so the mechs wouldn't have to turn around in the bay(like MW5 Mercs dropships)

Ok i think I covered most of the obvious questions. If you have something more esoteric please ask in the comments and I'll happily answer them there 👍

Painted a Coyotl and brought a custom variant to a casual game where it performed pretty well. Constructive criticism welcome.

Custom variant (omnipods swapped only, no armor, frame or engine mods):

Coyotl-E

Movement: 7/11/0; Engine: 280XL; standard myomer and gyro

Heat sinks: 12 (10 in engine, 2 in right arm)

Structure: endo steel (clan)

Armor: 8.5t ferro fibrous

Weapons:

RA 1 improved heavy large laser

RT 1 ER small laser

LA 2 ATM-3

LT 2 ATM-3 (all 4 ATM launchers share 3t ammo)

1702BV (BV2)
The idea is that the variant looks like the model and official art externally while being more BV efficient than the original (the Prime was more than 2000BV due to mounting too many long ranged weapons) and have some consistent chip damage from the 4 ATM-3s at all ranges (that can turn into serious crit seeking damage at close range on good to-hit mumbers).