(Editor's Update 11/12/24 - I bought a lightbox and added decals to these miniatures, and updated the photos in this article. If you would like to see the old photos, they are in a gallery at the bottom of the article.)

It's been a hot minute since I have had something to post - I had a really bad time of things getting a coat of green down on some of my larger vehicles, and lost four months of painting time.

But if I focus on what's gone, it's easy to lose more. So for me, the trick was to go back to old, comfortable roots, and paint something as a palette cleanser.

And, well, I did just that.

Regular readers will know that I played through MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries again, and I had collected a number of Clan-era Forcepacks.

Well, I knew what had to be done.

I wanted to paint something Blue, and so settled on Clan Ghost Bear's Beta Galaxy - the Night Howlers. I stole this scheme from a chap on reddit - minus the cracked-ice banding.

Apart from a nightmare time with the Vallejo Surface Primer, which was a total dick and refused to stop clogging my airbrush, I had a gem of a time getting a consistent coat of Vallejo Game Colour Dark Blue down onto my troops.

And the rest, as they say, was history:

It will annoy me if I don't mention it, but I found cleaning these up to be very difficult - and as you'll tell by the closeups, I did a pretty bad job. It's clear the quality of these figures is... well, it's not exactly GW standard.

But let's go through the lineup, shall we?

Gargoyle

The big dog himself was a bit of an unknown quantity to me - an older Clan design, his job is to get beaten to death whilst the nasty Clan Heavies get in position to belt any Inner Sphere pilots stupid enough to come close.

Think the Clan Equivalent of Gavin Cooper.

Mad Dog

One of the most recognized designs in Battletech, although also sometimes known as the "Vulture" - this is one of the aforementioned Omni-mechs whose job is to shred Inner Sphere garbage trash with LRMs and Large Pulse Lasers.

Hellbringer

In actual Battletech, this thing is rubbish - it's lightly armoured and heavily armed, and it isn't much different in Alpha Strike - expensive, fast, and fragile, the "Loki" as known to Spheroids, can't stand up to punishment, but can absolutely dish it out.

The Omnimech version of Tucker Carlson.

Ice Ferret

A medium mech with an attitude, fists, and a gun, the Ice Ferret's job is to move fast and bully lightly-armed, shitty Inner Sphere mechs. It does have a weakness to being ganged up on, but show me a Battlemech that doesn't.

Viper

There are many vipers, but there is only one Viper. And that's this nightmare of a design. Fast, jump-equipped, and utterly lethal - this dickhead's job is to get in and around, or hang back and blaze away - excelling in both roles.

I've even had a few games with the Heavy Striker Lance - turns out Clanners like long, open sightlines where they can out-duel individual Inner Sphere garbage.

Catch you next time,
Vulkan

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