BattleTech meets Tomorrow's War: Scout Lances and terrain pieces show-off

Hey ho. Probably the last post in 2012. Some people were asking for group shots and you shall receive.

I've been busy with creating tree stands for my games recently and can annoucne that so far 16 have been accomplished. I try to assemble and paint always in groups of eight bases. That's three stands of Light Woods and one stand of Heavy Woods per four bases created. I am looking for a total of roughly 40 of these bases.
On a tabletop of 1.20m x 1.80m (48" x 72") that will create enough forrest to resemble a single CBT mapsheet in N-scale.

I have also carried my completed lances and the first few of my buildings over to my best mates' house and took some pics of the Scout Lances in actual terrain (note that I still haven't received my ordered hexmats). 

a small engagement

House Davion Recon Lance advancing 

House Kurita Lance advancing (sorry its a bit blurry) 

House Davion Scout Lance complete 

House Kurita Scout Lance complete 

Mechwarrior Dark Age infantry re-based works perfectly with N-gauge houses 

Thanks for all of your comments and support. Hopefully I'll be able to surprise you with even more stuff for various games next year as well. Stay tuned!
Chris

Tomorrow's War meets Battletech: House Kurita's "Locust" finished

My Sword Of Light regiment's upgraded Locust light Mech, the LCT-3M, is my final addition to the light recon lance of House Kurita.

Based upon the original LCT-1V, the 3M variant replaces the Sperry Browning Machine Guns with four Light Lasers from Magna, while it does retain the Medium Martell Laser.

Ferro-Fibrious Armor increases the protection of the 3M upgrade, while Endo-Steel chassis reduces weight. The new light weight inner structure enables to mount a Voelkers Parasol Anti-Missile-System.

The radar dome of the Voelkers Parasol AMS, the Sashimono back banner and Sword Of Light regiment insignia add more detail to my Locust conversion.

Tomorrow's War meets Battletech: House Kurita's "Mongoose" finished

Designed to replace the old Locust models, the MON-66 is a deep-recon Mech.

 

Thanks to a Beagle Active Probe, the MON-66 picks up enemy targets fast and can relay that information quickly to its accompanying lance.

With two arm-mounted and one centre-torso mounted Sorenstein Medium Lasers, combined with a head-mounted Starflash Plus Small Laser, the Mongoose packs quite a punch for a light Mech.

Sashimono back banner as usual on my Sword Of Light units.

Some details of heat sink ports on back and legs.

Tomorrow's War meets Battletech: House Davion's "Raven" finished

The RVN-3L was House Liao's attempt to create a Mech specificly for electronic warfare. With the on-going border clashes between Liao and the Federated Suns, a few have fallen into House Davion's hands.

 

 

 

The miniature is a MW:DA repaint with some minor modification, like the SRM-6 launcher that I have added to the right torso.

This front shot reveals the Harpoon SRM-6 rack that I have added to the right torso. The grey areas underneath the cockpit (the "beak" of the Raven) are supposed to resemble Active Probe and ECM domes.

I had to add some rocks to the base to give the Raven a little more height. The MW:DA miniature is nice, but a bit small.

Main armament of the Raven, whose function is to shield its accompanying Mechs from enemy sensors, are two Ceres Arms Medium Lasers and a Harpoon SRM-6 rack.

With the Apple Churchill "Guiding Light" NARC beacon, the Raven provides a magnet for LRMs launched by friendly units, while the nose mounted TAG helps targeting Arrow IV artillery accordingly.

 

Since the introduction of ECM into the PC game Mechwarrior Online, the RVN-3L has become quite popular. Everyone seems to run one now. As I kind of liked the look of the Mech provided in TRO: 3050, I was happy to find the MW:DA miniature being not too much off.

I think the Raven will serve my recon lance perfectly.

Tomorrow's War meets Battletech: House Kurita's "Stinger" finished

STG-3R Stinger - another light 20 ton Mech for my Kurita recon lance.

Sharing most of the design features of its cousin (the Wasp), the Mech had been produced already en masse during the age of the Star League.

While the pilot within the head suffers from a cramped cockpit, the Stinger has the same agility and almost nearly as much firepower as the Wasp.

Main weapon of the 3R variant is the Omicron 3000 Medium Laser that is held in the right hand. Note the light battle damages to the shoulder (or me being unable to notice what the glue had done.... *wall bash*)

Left and right forearm bear Linblad Machine Guns to engage infantry.

 

 

 

Tomorrow's War meets Battletech: House Davion's "Stinger" finished

STG-5M Stinger with tech-update to face the invading Clans

 

 Thanks to weight-saving Endo-Steel the updated Stinger has more armour and received some new weapons to replace the Machine Guns of the older 3S model.
Main weapon remains the Omikron 3000 Medium Laser on the right arm.  

 The left arm now carries a FlameTech Flamer to engage infantry and light Mechs. 

 The updated configuration now also has a Lindblad "Shotgun" Anti-Missile-System, whose radar dome and multi-barrel gun can be seen mounted underneath the wrist of the right arm.

 The back and chassis apart from the head is more or less identical to its cousin, the Wasp.

Tomorrow's War meets Battletech: House Davion's "Wasp" finished

And there goes the next one...

Some more Davion love, to be added to my recon lance:

WSP-1A Wasp, based upon another Macross kit in 1/200 which works fine in N-scale. Compared to my previous Wasp for Kurita, this one resembles the early Succession Wars Wasp model with the SRM launcher still mounted to the left leg.

Diverse Optics Type 2 Medium Laser

Not much to say about this Mech apart from having created the pose as seen in TRO 3025 (Kurita's Wasp was based upon the TRO 3050 artwork).

Tomorrow's War meets Battletech: House Kurita's "Wasp" finished

House Kurita still relies on the fast 20 ton "Wasp" for its recon lances. Created back in the days when the SLDF was still around, these venerable designs have received some updates to face the invading Clan forces.

Light-weight, fast and maneuverable - the miniature is based upon a converted 1/200 Macross Valkyrie plastic kit.

An Intek Medium Pulse Laser in combination with an Irian Armorworks SRM-2 launcher doesn't deal a lot of damage, but that's not the job of a scout unit anyways...

The pose of the miniature is based upon the artwork of the unseen "Wasp" as depicted in TRO 3050/52.

The original "Wasp" design was inspired by the Valkyrie suits of the Macross animated series. These had a large number of plastic kits produced in Japan, varying in scale and content. Based upon the 1/200 scale plastic kit, combined with arms of a Gashapon action figure (also from Macross) I created this N-scale "WSP-3M Wasp" and used a pose as it was seen in the first print of TR 3050.

The artwork of these early FASA products did catch my attention back in the day. Its how I see the CBT universe - full of what nowadays is called "unseen" Mechs. I could imagine my whole recon lance is going to contain nothing but those early Mech designs and sub-variants... ^^

Tomorrow's War meets Battletech: House Kurita's "Longbow" finished

Another repainted 3" Exo Squad figure, now acting as House Kurita's "LGB-0W Longbow" Mech.

 

Compared to House Davion's Longbow I decided to have this one's missile bays closed. That allows me to show off with some really nice, large scale Kurita dragon crests.

 

 

The left "arm" sports the Sword of Light emblem. The huge tube-like arms include a Sian/Ceres LRM-20 system. 

 

The back shot reveals various heat sinks and the Sashimono back banner which I add to all of my Sword Of Light Mechs.

 

The Longbow is a popular missile support platform, bombing the enemy lines from a great distance. Not really made to go into a fight face to face with enemy Mechs, it rather stays behind and fires salvo after salvo of long ranged missiles. With 85 tons the Longbow is one of the heavier Mechs I plan to use with my Kurita force. Bear with me, more units are on the painting table! So many figures - so little time :-(

AVP: Colonial Marines Squad 1

US Colonial Marines Squad 1 (Woodbine Miniatures)

From left to right: Pfc. Hudson, Cpl. Dietrich, Pvt. Drake, Pvt. Frost

Pvt. Drake wielding a M56 "Smartgun", Pvt. Frost with M41 "Pulse Rifle".

Drake's Smartgun has been modified with scratchbuilt parts, bases are from Fenris Games.

Pfc. Hudson with Motion Tracker and M41 "Pulse Rifle", Cpl. Dietrich with M240 Flamethrower.

Pfc. Hudson is one of the platoon's Electronic Techs, Cpl. Dietrich applies her skills as a Medic.

I know the question will come up: comparison shot with my Power Loader.

So here goes: my first Colonial Marines for AVP. Using bases from Fenris Games excellent "Sulaco" series (25mm) and the beautiful collection of Woodbine's military Sci-Fi miniatures in 28mm for a pleasing result.

The Colonial Marines' platoons are broken down into two sections of two squads each, lead by a Lieutenant. The sections are lead by Sergeants, while the squads are under command of a Corporal.

The squad displayed might not stay like that, but its already consisting out of all the necessary miniatures - a leader (Dietrich), a Smartgunner (Drake) and two grunts (Frost and Hudson). Squads can be split once again into fire teams of two Marines each.

My complete first section (under GySgt. Apone) will be based upon the characters of "Aliens". Section two will consist out of all characters from the AVP trading card game from the 90's. This will give me enough Marines, to have two players controlling the USCMC for my forthcoming game.

Woodbine doesn't do "official" US Colonial Marines. The Pulse Rifles and Smartgun clearly are inspired by the movie but have been altered, probably due to copyright concerns. Their entire range (I will soon have all available ones) has all miniatures to display the whole movie's characters - to include the supporting individuals, like the Dropship's flight crew, Ripley, Burke etc. They are a little cartoony, but to me are probably the best "true" 28mm USCMC on the market.

Lesson learned so far: I just can't paint faces. Lots of practise should go into that topic :-/
Let me know what you think - especially about the camo!