Lawyers, 'Mechs and Money

Remember that lawsuit I mentioned in the last post? Well it turns out that some 'Mech designs and art have been creeping a little too close to the original designs, and Harmony Gold are suing again. A very appropriate time to talk about my latest (and hopefully final mech-related) buy.

The 3rd edition, chock full of 80's art and bad casting.

It's an old version of the BattleTech box set, featuring most of the 'unseens' in plastic form. Much cheaper than metals, as well as being harder to break, as I found out when I dropped the Shadow Hawk and the Wolverine on my floor last weekend...

This pic doesn't really do the castings justice. At least it captures the gun-on-wrong arm of the Shadow Hawk (left), the holes in the Battlemaster (centre) and the two halves of Marauder (right) that don't quite fit together.

Unfortunately, being plastic minis from the early 90's, the casting quality in unspeakable. Flash and holes everywhere, and the Locust and Marauder, which come in separate halves, have gaps in the middle.

Warhammer (left) was going to be in BOAR brown with black stripes. I will be re-doing this as the tones are very similar and it looks rubbish. The Rifleman (centre) is Napoleonic dark green with a stripe evoking (I hope) the satchel strap. The Crusader (right) is inspired by a British Crusader tank camo scheme, and will feature insignia following the theme. 

Having 14 to think up 14 different paint schemes has been something of an ask, so I've taken inspiration from a mix of the BattleTech video games, Fang of the Sun Dougram colours, and aircraft camo. Mechwarriors are halfway between a fighter pilot and a medieval knight anyway, so it seems appropriate.

Stinger (left) will be painted in blue-grey which I saw on the internet. The Archer (right) will be radio-4 themed and has colours taken from the Pucara aircraft. You don't see yellow very often in camo, but I think it makes a nice change.

I do have quite a collection of stuff on the painting queue, and it's only getting longer. I still haven't assembled that box of 40 hoplites I got from Warlord with their Hail Caesar rules. Oh dear. 

I already have metals of these, so I reposed the arms to provide some variety.