Somewhere In Clan Jade Falcon Space...

Tonight P and I went to visit our friend C and his wife L, and C and I took advantage of being in the same place as each other for the first time in a while played a game of Battletech: Alpha Strike. A 500 point game saw a company of his Davion Guards go up against a binary of my Jade Falcon Falcon Guards. We actually played a scenario from the Alpha Strike Commander's Edition rulebook - Hold The Line. I ended up as defender, and had to stop his mechs from exiting my board edge. It turned out to be quite a challenging mission for me, and his two Hunchback -4SPs were absolute monsters. 

Deployment: C about to move his Assault Lance up towards the Jade Falcon defensive line.

End of Turn 1: The Davions have lost a Nightstar and a Phoenix Hawk, while the Falcons have lost a Turkina (with the Skill 2 Star Colonel in it!) thanks to the Assault Lance and the Kingfisher thanks to the Hunchbacks

End Turn 2: the survivors of the Command Star have spread out but the Dire Wolf fell victim to the Hunchbacks while the Kit Fox fell to the Falcon Ebon Jaguar. Damage was scattered around the Thunderbolt, a Thunderhawk, and one of the Phoenix Hawks

End Turn 3: The Command Star has been utterly destroyed, while the Fire Star has lost its Mist Lynx. The Adder has begun to demonstrate its charmed life, with all the shots going towards it missing. In return the Falcons have downed a Thunderhawk, the Thunderbolt, and a second Phoenix Hawk

End Turn 4: The writing is on the wall for the Falcon Guards - they have been reduced to just the Ebon Jaguar and the now armourless Adder! But perhaps one more turn is in order before they concede

End Turn 5, End Game: The losses have been brutal on both sides. The last gasp of the Falcons sees them destroy the Ceasar for the loss of the Ebon Jaguar. The Adder, in what can only be the result of sheer good fortune, remains standing! Only five of the Davion machines remain, but the ratio of 7 IS mechs to 9 Clan is not a good one - dezgra!

 Strictly speaking the result was a draw - C got 500 VP for the surviving machines, and I got 500 VP for reducing his force below half strength - but that's just a technicality. I got my behind well and truly handed to me, and I have a newfound healthy respect for the Hunchback. Especially when they have Speed Demon and are moving at 10" a turn! Overall I think that the scenario didn't favour me - I had an advantage at range, but couldn't make use of it: we were in short range by turn 1 and never fired a long range shot all game. However I have to hand it to C, he played well and exploited success. Next time, spheroids!

A Slight Deviation

For a variety of reasons, not least of which is how warm it is in the office where I do my painting, I haven't actually done any of that today. What I did do, though, was clean up and repair the Bull Shark BSK-M3 model that I picked up when I went to visit R at the weekend.

The two metal barrels are from Heresy Miniatures' silenced machine pistols, replacing parts that broke off when being cleaned up

That beast should have two Autocannon 10s, two Autocannon 5s, four long-range missile launchers, and four medium lasers, but it turns out that you can't fit the AC/10s and the AC5s in the arms, so I had to swap them for LBX-AC10s (giant shotgun things really). Then I got to trying to stat it up for Alpha Strike, initially using the old Alpha Strike Companion rules:

 And then on being informed that this was out of date and that the place to go was Mega Mek's Mek Lab, I spent a while getting that downloaded and installed and the relevant Java runtime installed and then getting the damn thing recreated again:

Which is quite different really! At any rate if you'd like to get your own Bull Shark, you can find the files for them here. I also got the Orions, Black Knight, and Stalker 3H from that site too.

So no progress on the Pile of Opportunity, Marienburgers, or Space Wolves today - but I did do a fair bit of hobbying regardless.

And Now, Stompy Robots

With the Skaven all done, the Jade Falcons called me. I also realised I had a small group of 6mm objective markers (from the Adeptus Titanicus starter set that I briefly owned) and a small metal 6x6 truck I picked up at a Salute in the early 2000s which could do with some painting, so I settled down today and cracked on with the Falcon Guards and associated stuff:

The camouflage on the Falcon Guards is a tri-colour green/tan/khaki brown with an overall wash of Nuln Oil, ready to be highlighted and have details added. The objective markers have been painted in dark grey, light grey, green, and brown, before getting a wash of Agrax Earthshade. They'll have a quick drybrush of a pale grey and then get some detail work and be done, I think

These Falcon Guard Omnimechs were lacking in the green accent strips and panels that the rest of the force have, so I put some on - they still need highlighting up, but I'll do that when I get to it on the other, newer, Falcon Guard 'mechs

 

A 6mm Soviet truck of some description, I think. I bought this so long ago I can't remember who the manufacturer is, or even if I got it at Salute or at Warfare or somewhere else. I was a teenager though. Now it's been done up in generic grey, ready to grace an Alpha Strike battlefield as terrain, objective, or even extremely-low-quality-militia transport!

Painting the truck made me realise I really need to make (or get hold of) some hex bases for the various vehicles and things I have for Alpha Strike. Something else to add to the long list of Stuff To Do in the future.

Painting Points:
Today: 1
This Week: 23
2025: 290

 

Beeping And Booping

Not much actual painting done today but because the Necrons paint quite quickly, I've actually got to a point where I think a few more details and a bit of gloss varnish will have these finished soon:

My Tesseract Glow technical had completely separated but the judicious application of a long matchstick as a stirrer got it to a usable point again. 

In other hobby nonsense today I found an interesting website that allows you to create your own Battlemechs and generates Alpha Strike Data Cards too, although it is missing a few bits - I can't seem to add AWS, ECM, or similar stuff to 'mechs for some reason. Anyway it is still handy, and I used it to generate an Alpha Strike card for my preferred homebrew Firestarter version, the FS9-HM (M here standing for MacLeod's Light Horse, my mercenary company):

This version takes the standard FS9-H and removes all the weapons, replacing them with six Small Lasers and as much armour as will fit on the chassis. The end result is a machine that sacrifices its Medium range damage output of 1 for a doubled Short range output of 4, has one more armour point, and costs 1 more point to buy. I've got some 3d print files that I've asked my friend R (who is looking after my 3d printer for me) to print when she can. So that'll probably be a 2025 project.

And that was my day in silly toy soldiers!

BM & Co, or, Turning Packaging Into A Factory

Still ill, although a little better, so as usual for the last couple of days just a small blog entry today:

The factory's got some details on it now. I gave it a pretty generic name - BM & Co - and painted the doors white. I figure it's some kind of mega 3d-print thing produced when the planet was initially colonised and that explains the shape and texture. I'll likely get some of the Brigade Models' 6mm Agri-Colony range to accompany it, honestly, as it looks like it'd fit quite nicely with them.

I'll probably do a few more details - outline the side windows in white or otherwise make the distinguishable as individual windows - and I may yet put in something to make the roof look a bit less flat. Otherwise it's nearly done and can be fought around and over by my Battletech stuff.

A sudden thought has occurred that  I could use some card to make a ruined version to replace it should it get blown up in-game, but also, that's a lot of effort and I probably won't.

So Many Feet

 Today I have mostly been painting Night Goblins. 42 of them, to be precise, with a Shaman and a Battle Standard Bearer sitting waiting their turn (although really I don't need to paint these as I already have several Shamen and a BSB completed). This meant I needed to paint 84 shoes, 41 weapons, 38 shield rims, and now I'm working through the highlights on the shield designs so that's... oh I don't know how many passes of yellow on the shields.

Anyway, while doing this I have mostly been listening to this really quite excellent little series of videoed Battletech: Alpha Strike battle reports that Wargamer Stories over on the You of Tubes have. My best friend CH put me onto them today and they're really good - a series of linked battles as part of a proper old school map campaign, charting the war for a planet called Blue Hole, between the Alyina Mercantile League and the Vesper Marches' House Kerbyn. 

They've really got me itching to do some more 'mechs, but my main problem there is that the Mercenaries Kickstarter I backed is months away from arriving (damn space travel) and all my existing mechs are painted up anyway. So I guess I'll have to crack on with these cackling green loons, and try to get them done this weekend - if my sanity holds up after painting umpty jillion goblin teeth.

Oh, and so I don't post something without a photo, here's some photos from the Alpha Strike game CH and I played the other week at his parents' house. I took a Star of 'mechs from the Jade Falcon unit Falcon Guards, of the Gamma Galaxy, and CH brought a reinforced lance of his mercs, standing in for the Davion Brigade of Guards.

Deployment - Falcon Guard Alpha Trinary Command Star ambushed by Davion Guards reinforced lance

Initial moves to contact: the Davion Annihilator on the right really struggled to get to the fight.

After the Davion MadCat destroyed the Nova, it became a scrappy knife fight...

...so I pulled back to allow my superior ranged firepower to do its work.

CH's MadCat and my Timber Wolf blew each other to scrap at point blank range while my Turkina and Kingfisher dealt with the Annihilator.

When the dust settled only the Davion Archer remained standing, and CH withdrew having destroyed my Timber Wolf and Nova for the loss of his Blackjack, MadCat, Annihilator and Jagermech.

And, because I'm a fan of the stories that wargames and campaigns generate, that night I wrote a short story - just a thousand words - about the immediate aftermath from the perspective of the Jade Falcon clanners. You can find it here, at Archive Of Our Own.

No painting points today as I haven't finished anything. See you all tomorrow with some more progress (or even photos of the finished gobbos)!