MWO Battlemechs Part IV

With these guys finished I think I'm finally ahead of my Battletech to-do pile. Does that mean back to 40k? That pile is a bit big too, but I don't think I've gotten mecha out of my system quite yet...

The best version of the Firestarter is kitted out pleasingly with lasers and more armor, and is a real menace to mechs of all shapes and sizes because the thing can spring around like a jackrabbit. The model came with a set of extra legs for standing at parade-ground ready; we'll get to how I put those to use in a later post. I cannot get over how great the jump jets this one and the Vindicator are sporting look now. 

The Vindicator also received a much-needed  facelift, including a nice new leg sculpt. (speaking of which, he also came with an alternate "parade ground pair", which we'll come back to later on) If you've never used one, the thing is a deceptively well armored and very, very hardy. In an odd contrast to... well, everything else that has a PPC, this sculpt actually manages to look respectable, so I didn't kit it out with a replacement. 

The Catapult-K drops its LRM racks in favor of PPC's and machineguns. When you set the MG's to rapid fire, they make quite a close-range arsenal in addition to the lasers. This one's another excellent sculpt and a solid little model, and came with all the extras, including LRM battery arms and artillery rocket arms. 

While I like the Dragon sculpt in general the problem I have with the model is that the arms plug up into into sockets on the bottom of the static shoulder. While this gives you a bit of play, as you can see, the thing's mobility isn't as good as it could be. In game of 3025-era B-tech, my friend and I found that mk1 Grand Dragon not only overheats easily, it also blows up quite handily. House Kurita needed to go back to the drawing board pretty quickly with this one. 

Deathwatch Task Force Artemis

Firstly, the Pathfinder is on sale. I'd have hung onto it. but I'm out of work right now and need the money more than the model. 

Minus their Dreadnought comrade (who was converted for a Dreadtober event in 2016) here are the two Kill Teams that comprise Artemis' anti-Eldar beatdown brigade. I made the mistake of trying out Armory's black primer with these, and boy is it a chalky can of shit. Never again, Armory. Never again. 

The Artemis model, while having an excellent pose (by the one sculptor at GW who understands such, suffers from design flaws that seems to be creeping into more and more GW models these days. Separate-elbow syndrome is no laughing matter, and requires drilling and pinning to be viable. I wish they would master the art of making tabs and deep sockets, or just plain sculpt the arm as a complete piece. His right also has feeder cables for his combi-flamer that, being plastic, are pretty much guaranteed to snap at some point in their lifetime. If you're going to have cables all over the place, just make a metal model, for pete's sake. I know it's no guarantee even then, but jeez. 

The Vanguard Vets have a curious mix of slow-hitting super-heavy hammers and the troopers with storm shields to take the incoming hits for them, which would be an okay combination if the squads weren't limited to five men. The eldar as present in the box are all close-combat monsters, and will positively ruin them in a fight if the marines don't get in a bunch of killing blows. These guys would be great against slow Xenos, but there really aren't any. Necron foot soldiers, maybe? 

The Sternguard are a bit better poised (I guess?) to gun down the flip-dancing space fairies, although it would've been better to have the shot cannon (and a full squad of 10) for gunning down those eldar skimmers. Ah well, at least the heavy bolterflamer's more than capable of removing the woussy elves from the field, albeit at close range where if it doesn't, the Astartes are going to get their asses carved into so much transhuman lunchmeat. I know, I know, I'm giving the eldar too much credit, but they're not going to face a whole lot of incoming fire from this bunch, which is essentially a half-squad's worth of guns. Why are the Space Marines always, always outnumbered? It's not like they're THAT good on the tabletop. 

First Model of 2018: Jovian Chronicles Pathfinder Alpha Resin Kit

The turn of the new year saw me working on the DP9/Fusion Models Pathfinder Alpha. It was meant to be fixed-pose, but I can't leave things well enough alone, so I delved into my box of joints and made this one fully articulated. As with all mods, this proved to have its own issue. Namely, that it wasn't made to be jointed. Assembled stock, you'd be alright. I wasn't doing stock. 

As such, there's no room for well-anchored sockets and things to nestle naturally flush. The upper and forearms are too stunty, ditto the thighs and lower legs, so it was a choice between things being sticky-outy and being well anchored. The third alternative is smaller joints, but they're not as solid, and quite frankly I didn't want to spend the extra money. The objective here was to use what I had, so I did. Color wise, I chose to go with a weathered look in Anaheim Electronics colors, as this thing would be getting sandblasted by micrometeorites and bits of flying metal all day long, probably. So...

It has a waist now. It can even angle forwards and backwards (and side to side; it's a ball joint)  so as to crouch. 

And a neck. It can look up and down now. 

The left leg comes with an open hatch for beam saber storage and a beam saber (unlit) hand. I closed the hatch (open ones always break, in my experience) and stowed the hand. It also came with a base I didn't need, so I didn't even bother to paint it. A Bandai Action Base is more appropriate now, anyway. I mounted the sensor dish differently from the directions as well; this is more as per the first (Moscato) version. 

There is no big hulking appropriately proportioned Wyvern, so here's an MSIA Dom model for scale. 

Now its feet aren't paddle-flat, courtesy of the superfluous backpack panels I turned into foot bits. Thanks to the ball-joint ankles they still have quite a range of movement. 

The beam rifle's pointy stock had to be snipped, otherwise the mecha couldn't hold it well; the pointy bit would have to be on the inside of its elbow or the arm would have to be ramrod straight. So, a bit of a snip an some filing were needed. While overall not a bad design, it does add weight to the tiny ball joint I used for a wrist. Luckily it's a fairly light piece of resin, so it holds. Also, you can position the hand and arm so the loading force doesn't slowly pull at the joint, so overall it's a win.

Technical review points: as a kit it's simple, solid, and  actually made of good resin. If you like mecha in general and Jovian Chronicles in particular and aren't a picky bastard like I am (quite frankly, I prefer the Moscato-designed 1st gen exo armors), chances are you'll love this.

This model is for sale (or trade for classic RAFM Heavy Gear/Jovian Chronicles minis). Email me if you're interested. Otherwise, it'll be on eBay by Monday 1/15/17.

EDIT: This model has been sold.

WIP: Another mecha resin garage kit.....

This thing has actually been painted and is curing after being matte coated in the cold January sun, but I thought I'd give you some pre-color WIP shots. This is a Pathfinder model from Dream Pod 9, fitted with leftover joints from my bits box. I prefer the old John Moscato design, but I thought I'd give this one a whirl. 

I wish the legs were 30% bigger and the side torso vent bits higher (hmm, could've cut and reset those, I guess) but oh well.