Jodrell Plays Games

This Friday, Mark and I will kick off a year-long BattleTech campaign, using the Chaos Campaign: Succession Wars rules.

We’ve each built a company of ‘mechs (three lances of four ‘mechs each), that will change and grow as the campaign develops.

Some of my company will come from a new force of ‘mechs, which I’ve painted in a sneaky camouflage scheme, which you can see here. This scheme is extremely quick and easy to paint, using contrasts paints and washes, and looks great on the table.

I will share updates on the campaign as they occur.

Close-up photos below the fold!

Here are some more BattleTech 'mechs, from the Inner Sphere Strike Lance (not 3D printed) which was a Christmas gift from Mark. Having painted about 25 models in this colour scheme, I can knock them out pretty quickly now!

Wolfhound

Jenner

Panther

Blackjack

So far most of the 'mechs I've printed have been on the heavy side, so I was conscious that if I wanted a viable battleforce I'd need to augment them with some lighter 'mechs.

Then, in a fit of insanity, I decided it would be fun to print half a dozen Fleas (15-ton scout 'mechs)! I quite like the idea of a swarm of these critters crowding around heavier 'mechs and being a general nuisance, even if they can't deal a killer blow.

I wanted to emphasise their diminutive size, so I scaled them down a bit so they're about the same size as an Epic-scale Sentinel. That's another nice thing about 3D printing miniatures: you can very easily shrink or enlarge the model if you don't like its size.

I'm taking a few of these chaps in a game tomorrow and I'm keen to see if my idea works out!

This Marauder is one of a batch of the first (I hope of many) miniatures that I've 3D printed and painted for use in games. The STL files are widely available and of very good quality.

More below the fold!

Fresh off the production line, here's another batch of 'mechs to go with the last. The picure above shows a MechWarrior Online-style Archer that I printed using my 3D printer. Stay tuned for more of these!

More 'mechs below the fold!

You wouldn't know it from the contents of this blog, but I've been playing BattleTech for almost as long as I've been playing Epic: at least thirty years now!

However, despite playing the occasional game, I haven't expanded my (fairly modest) collection of 'mechs in at least twenty years, and certainly haven't painted any this side of the Millenium.

I was very fortunate to receive a copy of the new Beginner's Box and an Inner Sphere Battle Lance as gifts. These contain some of the gorgeous new miniatures being produced by Catalyst Game Labs, which have inspired me to get more involved in the game: I've now painted the plastic 'mechs in a consistent colour scheme and will be going back into my collection of old metal 'mechs to strip and repaint them. My gaming BFF Mark and I went halves on a set of GeoHex tiles to create some gorgeous battlescapes for playing games on!

More pictures of the above 'mechs below the fold.