Robot Fight Club

This weekend I'm going to be hanging out with some family and my 13 year old nephew. We've made it a tradition of getting him a game every Christmas so we have something to play as a family every year. Things like Bears vs. Baby’s, and Exploding Kittens were a hit in the past. So I figure it's about time to get him into a miniature game. So what better game than the Summer Blockbuster Movie hit: BATTLETECH!

Cancel the Apocalypse!

Battletech was honestly was the first game I thought of. Pacific Rim is a huge hit with our family. Seriously, who doesn't like 14 story tall robots fighting monsters?

The problem was I never owned a copy of Battletech despite playing it countless times over the years. There was that new version a few years back, but all anyone had in stock was the beginner box. I wanted more than two mechs...  maybe it would have to do? 

Then I was in luck! During a normal work trip I stopped in the local Barnes & Noble to try to find a copy of Rangers of Shadowdeep. No luck there, but they had a copy of the full version of Battletech at retail price! (Note: I have some great local hobby shops, but outside GW, Star Wars, and Hordes, they don’t carry much in the way of miniature war games.)

The new models look great, with surprisingly well hid mold lines. I was also perplexed to find "Alpha Strike" cards in the box. After a little research I found there's actually two versions of the game these days: Classic battletech (classified as a boardgame) with all the dots to fill in and heat to track; and Alpha Strike the miniatures game. Alpha Strike is honestly the game of Battletech I always wanted! Simpler to track, but just as tactically sound; plus easier to manage a whole lance or more of mechs!

Marching to War!

Time was limited so I settled in on a quick Red vs. Blue as the base colors. I thought this is the way with Star Wars and G.I. Joe weapons, and of course Rock'em Sock'em Robots, so why not? I used a GW texture paint for the bases for the first time, and really liked how it turned out. So after a nice base coat of spray paint, each lance got a wash to hit the recesses. I dry-brushed over that with a base color, and then picked out some highlights in a lighter color. 

To make them stand out more than just red and blue, I picked some details. The blue lance got some strategic lines of yellow, and were all marked with a spade. The red lance received a tan line going down their left side, which was a careful application of bone with a wash over it. I really like how striking they look now. I like the blue lance's mechs more (yay chicken walkers!); but I think the red lance is my favorite paint job of the two. 

I was going to paint diamonds... until I realized how small they'd have to be.

They were going to get spades.

And with that, I got 10 models done in like... 3 nights? Some of these shortcuts worked really well. I'll have to fine tune them and start knocking out more models. Not every model needs to be a showcase, I just want some nice battlefield models so I can play more games. :)