Making the best of cheap Battlemechs!

A couple of months ago I picked up the new Battletech Introductory Boxed set for Classic Battletech produced by Catalyst Games. Now I have Battletech "Total Warfare" and a number of my own Mechs but the boxed set came with really nice board game style map sheets made from heavy cardboard as well as 26 Battlemechs. 24 Inner Sphere mechs (that's two companies) and 2 Clan Omnimechs. It also came with a slimmed down rulebook and even some quick start rules as well as record sheets and some other odds and ends.
The Mechs in the boxed set are really poorly made. They are cast out of cheap plastic. I'm talking toy army soldier cheap. This is nothing new. The plastic mechs that came with the old boxed set put out by FASA were pretty much the same quality and I would much rather have 3D plastic mechs than 2D cardstock flats that FASA used in a few versions on the introductory set.
Still they are pretty bad so I've come up with a way to paint them quickly and make them look nice. Nothing stellar but nice enough for my table.
I've chosen to paint all my mechs in camo paint schemes. The box comes with two companies so I'm going to paint the two companies in two different camo patterns although I am going to paint all of the mechs to represent units of the Hanseatic Leauge Regional Defense Forces. That's really not that important. I chose to do a camo paint job because not only are they fast and easy they also look the best on these crappy mechs. The camouflage pattern mask the flaws in casting and the fact that I did a rather hasty job of cleaning these mechs up before painting. The soft plastic also makes removing lines a pain. As you can see in the picture I started by painting this Assualt Lance with primer grey then I added a simple brown camo pattern.

Next I took some light sand colored paint and drybrushed the entire mech. This is a great way to paint figures using camo quickly and easily. I've even used this technique on 28mm military figs.

Next I painted in markings and added some weathering using some dark metallic paint to add damage to the mechs paint jobs.

Next up I added a wash of Burnt Umber with some Dark Blue mixed with water and Future Floor Wax. This was done to add detail to the recessed areas and tone down and blend the drybrushing.

After the Wash dried I detailed the Mechs adding cockpits and bringing out some of the scratches in the paint job with a bright silver. After that I finished the bases and gave the lance a matte varnish. These Mechs only took a few hours to paint a good hour of that was waiting for the wash to dry. I think they are a pretty effective looking unit despite the fact that the minis themselves are pretty poor in quality.

Battletech Rio Jihad Campaign:3076 Raid on the Artillery Convoy

Tonights Battletech campaign game was quite a bit closer than a lot of the previous battles. Stone's mercenaries were ordered to capture a number of "Long Tom" artillery pieces from a convoy being supported by six battlemechs and a number of Arrow IV carriers. The Word of Blake forces fought a hard battle against the mercenaries supported by their artillery which had a devastating effect on the mercs.
Three of the mercs battlemechs were destroyed in the battle but they did manage to capture several artillery pieces.

Battletech Rio Jihad Campaign 3076: Supply Raid

We had another campaign battle for the Rio Jihad Campaign yesterday. Again I was playing the Opp. Force for the players with the help of my friend Mike. The senerio called for Stone's Mercenaries (the players) to break through the lines of the local militia and intercept a supply convoy. The militia consisted entirely of super heavy LRM carriers and infantry spotters.
Although Sone's Merchs had several mechs damaged in the fight they lost no mechs or pilots and were able to intercept the convoy.

Battletech Rio Jihad Campaign 3076: Assault on the Repair Base

I played the Opp Force in another Jihad campaign game for the local Battletech group. This battle was a Manei Domini assault on Stone's mercenaries repair facility. The mercs had just received a airdrop of supplies (the little white rectangles) and were in the process of moving them into the base. Additionally a group of pirates called Grimm's Anarchist had heard of the assault via a contact. They planned to raid the base for some of the supplies.

The Manei Domini brought 8 celestial omnimechs and the pirates brought 6 assorted mechs. Stone's mercs had a company of heavy mechs and a few vehicles. The mercs defended the base well suffering only a single mech out of action. Some of their other mechs were damaged including a Black Knight who lost his targeting computer half was through the battle. The pirates suffered the loss of a Locust who ran into a mine field at the start of the battle. The Manei Domini suffered at least 50% losses due to the fact that the defenders chose to concentrate on them.

This is a map of the Blake Protectorate. Rio is in that eastern peninsula near Tikonov.

Battletech Basic Training Training Scenario #1: First Run

I've been playing Battletech again at my FLGS for a couple months. It's been almost ten years since I was a regular Battletech player. My wife use to play Battletech before our daughter was born 14 years ago so we are both very rusty players. Since I've been playing with a local group I've dug out my old mechs and started painting and re-painting them. I've also started purchasing new mechs. My wife and daughter are both gamers so when my daughter expressed an interest in learning the game my wife decided she would start playing again as well. I've got the newest rule book "Total Warfare" but most of my mechs and record sheets are classic Inner Sphere so I turned to my 3rd edition boxed set for training scenarios. Fortunately Battletech has changed very little in 30 years compared to other games so this worked out just fine.
The scenario calls for Wasp and a Griffin as the Defenders and a Stinger and a Wolverine as the attackers. The first side to score a kill wins the simulation. I chose to run the defending mechs. My wife chose the Stinger and my daughter chose the Wolverine.


Early on the Wolverine took several hits but it's tough armor held out quite well. I chose to keep my mechs mobile through jumping and running. This also made it harder for me to hit but not that hard. My wife jumped the stinger quite a bit too but the Wolverine had no jump jets so it ran quite a bit which it why it took some damage.

Later on in the game all that jumping and shooting was really starting to overhead my Griffin. The old 3025 mechs have very poor heat management. Usually they have only single heat sinks and more fire power than they have heat dissipation. The 3025 Griffin-1N is notorious for it's heat problems since it carries a PPC and a LRM 10 launcher which generate 14 heat alone. With only 12 heat sinks you can't walk and fire for more than a couple turns without starting to take overheating penalties. Another problem is the PPC has a minimum range of 3 hexes and the LRMs are even worse with a minimum range of 6 hexes. This ment that I had to stay mobile to stay at range especially since my wife and daughter were doing the best they could to stay inside my minimum ranges. Eventually I had to start walking and firing only one weapon at a time but I was still having heat issues.

With my Griffin overheating I decided to try and get my Wasp into the fight a bit more. The Wolverine had taken some heavy armor damage at this point but had lost no internal systems. My Griffin's heat was going down but I was still taking movement and heat penalties. I tried to jump my wasp behind the Stinger to get in a physical attack and some close range back shots. Unfortunately I miscalculated the Wolverine's run and was able to get into physical attack range with me. The Wasp managed to shoot the Stinger but only managed to hit a leg. The Griffin missed entirely due to the fact that the Stinger had jumped the the Griffin was still suffering a +1 to hit due to heat. To make matters worse the Wolverine blew the Wasp's arm off in the firing phase. I missed my kick on the Stinger during the physical attack phase but the Wolverine connected sending the left leg of the Wasp flying off and knocking it on it's back.

On the last turn my Wasp managed to stand back up but it's SRM 2 pack did minimal damage to the sturdy Wolerine. I decided to fire both the Griffin's weapons at the Stinger in an attempt to get a draw. One good shot on the Stinger with the PPC could easily take it out and the LRM 1os can do massive damage to a light mech too. Unfortunately despite being at perfect range for the LRMs neither shot hit. The Wolverine completely opened up on the poor Wasp with everything it had blowing the 20 ton mech into several pieces.

The simulation was over with a solid victory for my wife and daughter.

Battletech Rio Jihad Campaign 3076: Battle of the Com Station

I played the opposition force again for the local Battletech campaign. This time I got the low down on more of the campaign details. The campaign is taking place on the planet Rio. Devilin Stone has hired mercenaries (the campaign players) to take Rio from Word of Blake forces. So far Stone's mercenaries have fought mostly mercenaries hired by the Blakest.
This particular battle took place near Orinoko City.
The Word of Blake had a com station outside the city they were using to jam communications. The facility was defended by four lances of the "Shark Hunters" mercenary company and some infantry. Stone's mercenaries brought about a company to assault the facility.

Again Stone's mercenaries pretty crushed the "Shark Hunters" effectively wiping out the mercenaries as far as the campaign is concerned. To add insult to injury the Word of Black sent an entire bomber wing to indiscriminately bomb the battleground. The bombers of course did more damage to the defending forces than the attackers. In the End Stones mercenaries took the facility with no casualties.

Classic Battletech "Battle at Wilson's Farm"

I'm still playing the opposition forces for one of the local Battletech groups. This week I was put in command of a force of 6 Manei Domini mechwarriors and battlemechs. We were stationed at the Wilson farm. Wilson was the leader of the local Blakest militia. A force of Inner Sphere invaders approached the far and met with Wilson. Unfortunately the Manei Domini commander observed the farmer and the invader's diplomats shaking hands at the end of the meeting. Traitors cannot be tolerated so the closest Manei Domini battlemech was ordered to fire on Wilson's truck vaporizing it instantly.

The Manei Domini sprung the trap and at first it looked like things were going perfectly. The Blakest Militia and Manei Domini were surrounding a single lance of Inner Sphere mechs and the other Inner Sphere lance was some distance away from the fight. One Inner Sphere mech, a Clint IIC was damaged badly in the opening salvo. However the Manei Domini commander noticed that the Blakest Militia did not fire nor did they make any moves to engage the invaders. A Militia Crab mech moved up to the road and appeared to be scanning the area where Wilson's truck had be destroyed.

Shortly after determining that Wilson was actually dead the Militia units changed sides which infuriated the Manei Domini commander. Unfortunately it left the Manei Domini battlemechs outnumbered over two to one. The Manei Domini concentrated their fire on the traitors virtually ignoring the Inner Sphere lances. The Clint IIC was forced to withdraw and the Crab mech of the traitor militia was destroyed. Some of the other militia mechs were heavily damaged and a few of the Inner Sphere mechs were damaged but the Manei Domini suffered the loss of a Malak and several of the mechs took critical damage. In the end what looked like an easy victory for the Word of Blake turned into a shameful loss.

Classic Battletech: Infantry Battle!

Some Battletech players at my local FLGS have been running a Battletech campaign set during the Blakest Jihad. I've been extremely busy with school so I wasn't able to dedicate every Sunday afternoon to the campaign but I've been playing the Word of Blake units during some of the games.
This last game we played a large scale infantry battle set in a city. The Blakest were hiding some weapons grade Uranium in the city and the allied forces were sent to investigate. The Allies expected light resistance but they were mistaken. An entire regiment of elite Word of Blake infantry were defending the city. The fighting was hard. The Blakest forces shot down two VTOL troop transports and immobilized 8 tanks armored vehicles. Most of the Allied forces were turned back but they did manage to infiltrate one of the facilities and achieve some of their objectives.
I've never played such a large infantry battle in Battletech before but it was a lot of fun.

Classic Battletech "Snord's Irregulars" 3025

I've been getting back into Classic Battletech a bit which is a great wargame for anyone pressed for time since the setup is minimal for a basic game. For the most part I've been using my friends mechs because I've been playing with them at the FLGS and their homes but I decided to dig out my old mechs to see what I had. I found I had about 32 Inner Sphere 3025 era mechs mostly old sculpts and also mostly plastic from the various box sets that have come out over the years.
Having no particular loyalty to any of the great houses I decided I wanted to paint my mechs as mercenaries and pirates. A friend of mine had ummm "found" several Battletech pdfs on line and a file folder with said pdfs just happened to end up on one of my portable drives. I set down to do a little "research" on existing mercenary and pirate units to decide if I wanted to use and existing unit or make up my own. After a bit of reading I started to remember just how in depth the Battletech Universe was and how hard it would be to write a decent back story for a new unit with my sketchy knowledge of the setting. I opted to pick and existing unit or rather units to pattern my mechs on.


The unit I chose to re-create was "Cranston Snord's Irregulars". This unit as written in their sourcebook was made up of a single company of mechs. 12 figures seemed like a reasonable painting project and a company sized game is a fairly large battle in "Classic" Btech. Another thing that made the unit a good match is that I owned all the mechs required to build the unit as they were written for 3025 and they were all in old sculpts which matched the artwork in the sourcebook. One of the things that really burns me out when painting up "armies" is that painting the same uniform color scheme gets dull for me really quickly. That often causes me to bounce around from project to project which makes painting armies a painfully slow process for me. Fortunately "Snord's Irregulars" have no set color scheme on their mechs. Each mech is unique and the unit has three alternate badges as well so that's a lot of variation I can bring to the mechs. Also from the artwork and background it seems that the mechwarriors of the unit do quite a bit of customization to their mechs paint slogans and such on their machines. I think this will be a fun unit to paint.

From the back cover of the sourcebook:

"Cranston Snord's Irregulars have widely different reputations, depending on who you ask. Katrina Steiner thinks of the unit as one of the most effective, if unorthodox, units in her employ. House Marik would like to rid the Inner Sphere of the unit and has been trying for many years. Jaime Wolf sees the unit as a band of looters who have made good. One way or the other, the Irregulars are probably best known for their ability to get into and out of tight spots created by their never-ending quest for the lost artifacts and/or treasures of Mankind's past. Whether called looters or not, they are still a unit to be reckoned with."