Holding the Line against the Jade Falcons

They're here:   The Clans, those fascist vat-born pubescent fantasies of power and honor - they've come for your basic human rights and genetic legacies!  But fear not, gentle reader, the 1st Argyle Rangers are here to defend you and the Four Freedoms that make the Federated Suns the light of civilization in the Inner Sphere!

Let's have a look at our heroic defenders in action against the dreaded Jade Falcon Clan.

Wow, 12k BV sure does buy a lot of toys!

Here we see the 1st Argyle Rangers, an elite battalion loyal to le Comte de Laval, commanded by his son, Colonel Julien Laval.   Colonel Laval has commanded the unit for over 20 years, and despite being near 50 years old, he has taken the field for a battle of importance.  Riding his rare mech, a Marauder II, he is an intimidating presence on the battlefield.

The Jade Falcon force looks small in comparison, but they should not be underestimated.  Reports of what a single 5-mech "Star" was able to do to well armed Kurita mercenaries show what only a handful of these powerful mechs are capable of. 

The Rangers hunker down behind their defenses and await the coming storm.

The Jade Falcons make a cautious approach, threatening the Rangers' right flank, using a large hill as cover.

Meanwhile the Rangers' VTOL element makes a wide flanking motion of their own, getting around the rear of the enemy quickly.

Col. Laval redeploys his forces to blunt the expected attack.

"Visual Contact!"  A Summoner takes a cautious step around the hill and is met by 8 volleys of LRM 20 packs, sending it scurrying back behind cover once more.  Some of the younger members of the Davion force openly mock the Clans on their radios, but Laval quickly tamps that down.  This was not the time for overconfidence.

He orders his light mechs to flank the enemy on the left, hoping to draw them out of formation.

Meanwhile the VTOLs are in position directly behind the enemy, staying carefully out of sight and awaiting their moment.  In one of the transports waits two platoons of highly trained anti-mech infantry.  The other... well, let's just say some modifications have been made to the underbelly to offer the Clans a bit of a surprise.

Indecision on the part of the Clan commander sees the Star continually redeploying behind the hill, trying to find a way to threaten the Rangers' tight defensive formation. They seem to consider cresting the hill or rounding it on the right and left simultaneously... but only a few shots have been fired thus far.

Finally, they make their decision and divide into three groups. One mech alone against the heavily defended right, two mechs (including the Star Commander in his Warhawk) at center, and the two Summoners trying to chase the lights around the mountain to the left. 

Outrunning the chasing mechs, the lights make their move, followed up by VTOL support and some jump infantry that took advance positions on the hill. The VTOLs, infantry and light mechs rush the rear of the two lead mechs.

Before they connect the Star Commander challenges Col. Laval  to personal combat according to the Clan's absurd honor rules. Laval, despite a reputation for disdaining duels, gleefully accepts.  If he can personally tie up the Star's commander the rest of the company can focus on the other mechs.  The Colonel holds strictly to the dueling rules, forcing the commander to keep them as well, while his Light mechs and vehicles utterly disregard the rules and seek for rear armor shots.

Ignoring the Star Commander's Warhawk, the lights fire everything into the rear armor of the leading NovaCat.  The infantry however fire on the Star Commander.  Lucky shot to the head sees him black out for a full turn.  Yet Col. Laval orders no one to fire on the unconscious pilot.  He's playing the long game - even if the Rangers win here, he wants them to do it with a reputation for accepting Clan honor.  Not for reasons of respect (who can respect a fascist?), but for future exploitation.

Meanwhile the Blackhawk moves up rapidly into range, facing an incredible amount of incoming fire.

...and the two Summoners finally round the mountain to see their light mech targets tearing apart their friends.  Wait, did that Karnov VTOL just fire an AC-20 into the back of that NovaCat?  You bet your ass it did.  #DuctTapeSolutions.

With his dueling target briefly unconscious, Col. Laval takes a look around for a quick mid-battle assessment.  The two Summoners on the left are playing catch up, the Blackhawk on the right is getting torn apart by heavy armor, a Hunchback and a Stalker, and the center... the center is a glorious mess of back-shotting lights and VTOLs and front shotting LRM-20s.  Things are looking pretty good for the Rangers!

An infantry platoon takes advantage of the unconscious commander and climbs on board.

The NovaCat... oh poor Cat.  He's charging the LRMs of the Bombadier, while three lights pluck away at its rear armor.  Engine hits soon accumulate...

...fire from the front isn't any better.

The modified Karnov VTOL drops more AC-20 cannon shots into the Summoners as they finally arrive at the party.

Infantry swarm the commander as he tries to continue his duel with the Colonel, and jump infantry harass him at his heels, tearing up his rear torso armor.

The Blackhawk is down, landing a Gyro hit on the Hunchback as he drops. The Hunchback's pilot soon rights his mech and starts to pull back for repairs (Inners are fighting under Forced Withdrawal rules).

As the enemy nears the walls, it's a constant barrage of missiles from the carriers and infantry both.  The NovaCat goes down to engine hits.  That means at least one captured Clanner.

Summoners are dropping fast, as the Warhawk takes engine hits from the infantry. The mech shuts down where it stands.  The pilot, helpless against two platoons of infantry, still takes a several gunshots before surrendering.  A captured Star Commander is going to play very well at court for Col. Laval.

A single Summoner remains, and charges Laval. His PPCs connect with the Clan mech, shaking but not stopping it...

It is at last put down by a rear armor shot from that VTOL with the AC-20 duct taped to the hull.

And with that, the day belongs to the Rangers and Colonel Laval's victory is complete.  Unbelievably, not a single FedSuns soldier died in the fighting.  Three mechs saw significant damage (both Jenners and the Hunchback), and one of the VTOLs will need repair on its rotors, but otherwise this battle was about as one-sided as any force commander could have hoped for.  With no deaths, few repairs, and a pile of incredibly valuable Clan salvage, Colonel Laval may make his final dreamed of promotion to the AFFS General Staff.  Especially with several captured Clanners to bring before the First Prince.

Hurrah!  Victory for the Federated Suns and Freedom!

New Additions - Battletech

Battletech - just when I think I have enough figures...

Oh well, I really enjoy painting them.  Let's have a look at the newest additions to the 1st Argyle Rangers.

We have some new Ferret VTOLs, which are actually some NATO choppers from another company. Annoyingly, unlike Battletech figures, they didn't come with stands and I had to buy them separately.. But the details is very nice.

I'm intending to use them as incredibly fast spotters for long range missiles and eventually artillery. 

I absolutely love using  the Karnov Transport VTOL in game. Fast and delicate, for the BV cost it is incredible to move your infantry around.  And since we allow rappel lines to be used, this bad boy can drop an anti-mech squad onto an enemy mech and do some serious damage.

So naturally, I needed a second one painted up to double the damage.

Next up, two Manticore Tanks.  I'm very excited to try these out on the table.  They seem the perfect compromise between the expensive heavy tanks and the near useless light tanks.

Now, I promised myself I didn't need any more mechs, but the Wolverine just caught my attention. It's weapon load out and jump jet variant seemed a nice middle of the road mech. It's a big expensive in terms of BV, but I think it may well be worth it.

Painting Battletech (2 of 2)

We last left our heroes basecoated and highlighted. Now we move on..

Step 9: Wash.  Wash, not dunk, and certainly not drown. The color and shading are set, we just want to get some dark into those cracks.  With a tiny brush, I carefully inserted Citadel Sepia Shade into the cracks and only into the cracks. This is slow work, but most of the time if you make a mistake (and a watery wash is tough to control) you can brush off the excess with a finger.  This step really transforms the mech, and works very, very well with the metal models in particular.

From left:  Hussar, King Crab, Crusader, after the sepia wash.

Step 10:  Secondary Colors.  In this case, a very dark gray (Dunkelgrau), so dark it looks black from a distance.  It provides a nice contrast with the bright yellow, and breaks up the mech a bit visually.  This is all brushed on - carefully, as the yellow will not cover that gray. If I had any major accidents I'd have to go back to the airbrush, using both white (to cover) and yellow. Thankfully, that didn't happen here.

Thumper Artillery

The whole family: (from left) King Crab, Stinger, Hussar, Crusader, Bombadier, Wasp, Thumper.

With the secondary color brushed on, it's time for highlighting.  Now, what follows is completely optional, and most Battletech players probably wouldn't have bothered to go this far. However, at this point I was having a blast and really wanted to bring these to the next level.  So I decided that rather than simply drybrush on the highlights for the gray, I'd go back to the airbrush.  That means lots and lots of masking, covering all the yellow parts of the mech.

Step 11a: Masking.  A combination of tiny 2mm Tamiya masking tape, regular size masking tape, and bluetac putty to take care of curves.

Almost the entire mech is covered. The masking process took far, far longer than the actual highlighting that follows.

Step 11b: airbrush highlight the second color. For this I used a Barley Gray, and then hit it with a lighter highlight of the same gray mixed with a good bit of white.  

Again, drybrushing would have been way faster.

But drybrushing wouldn't have come out like this:

Funny thing about that King Crab: considering how little gray there was to highlight, I intended to just drybrush. I admit, part of that was that I didn't want to go through the hassle of masking.  But after I highlighted everything else, I just said "screw it" and freehanded the highlights for the King Crab, Stinger and Wasp without any masking at all. Incredibly, I did so without any mistakes.  Ok, there's a slight bit of overspray on one of the mechs, but no one but me will be able to see it unless I tell you which mech and where.   It's utterly invisible in the pictures.

The airbrush allows for a much smoother highlighting on those missile pods and feet.

Step 12:  Cockpits.  There's been a lot written on the internet about "jeweling" cockpit glass. I've never been happy with the result, whether I use an airbrush or a regular brush.  Sadly, this time is no exception.  I may have to try again on these later.  I tried the brush method this time around, brushing on a base of Gory Red, then watered down layers of Gory Red, Blood red, and orange, blending them together.  The blending was moderately successful, but I know it could be better. Practice!

I added a few white dots as "lens flares", again with mixed results.

Step 13: Details.  Painting missiles white, touches of Steel color, including some drybrushing of places likely to see wear (hands, feet, engines).

I even painted the missiles on the Crusader's collars, which was a bit nutty.

Step 14: Final Drybrush.  This is just to bring out the edges for some final highlights.  I used Buff, a sort of very light yellow, on the hard yellow edges, and straight White on the gray edges. This is the lightest of light drybrushing. You don't want to see the paint at all, just the illusion of light catching the edges. With the airbrush, the shading and highlighting is as good as I can get it, but this manual step hardens the edges and makes the thing seem like it's 50+ tons of metal.

Step 15: Basing.  I simply painted the edges Flat Brown and flocked the base with white glue and Woodland Scenics Summer Grass.

Step 16: Decals.  Obviously optional, but the 1st Argyle Rangers are a patriotic bunch.  I did this while the flocking was still drying.

Step 17: Final basing touches.  Army Painter makes excellent little bushes for basing which are super easy to use. I also have a small container of desert colored stones that go with my color scheme.

Step 18:  Sealing.  I sealed these with Vallejo Satin Varnish via the airbrush. 

And with that, we're done!  Take a look at the final product below.

The Hussar leads the pack.

The Longbow, bought entirely because it looks so cool.

Wasp.

Davion Pride from this King Crab.

The Crusader, the mech I'm most looking forward to playing.

Back of the Bombadier.

Stinger.

Back of the Stinger.

Thumper Artillery with tracked tow and ammo carrier.