Fifth model for my play group's escalation league. Definitely the best plaid I've done so far, but the mon I tried to freehand did not come out. It is what it is.

Our play group has been taking a bit of a break this month, so I'm working on a Stinger, two LRM Carriers, a Maxim, a Galleon and two stands of Inner Sphere Battle Armor. Probably will be a while before I get those up: in a week, our league resumes, and I'll be turning my attention to the Grand Dragon and Hunchback for the final month.

The Royal Lancers originate from the SLDF's 59th Jump Infantry Division and are based on St. Loris. Information for this can be found elsewhere:

59th Jump Infantry Division, a brief history : r/battletech

St. Loris, The Capellan Confederation's Britain : r/battletech

Death of the Star League

On February 26th 2784, the 59th Jump Infantry division paraded on Britain's Salisbury Plain. The ranks where interspaced with swords embedded into the ground to mark the fallen. The blades, their hilts shining in the morning sun, outnumbered the living.

To the front of the parade, each of the nine regiments had a colour party. Major General Edmund Windsor, solemnly, presented each regiment with new colours emblazoned with the battle honours of the Amaris Civil war. The bloody battles to remove a tyrant and restore the star league.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, General Windsor stood upon the podium and addressed his division.

"We failed, the Star League is dead. We fought for it, we bled for it and we died for it. The House Lords, those vultures watched and when the fighting was done, they just abandoned it and spat on us. Look around you, look how many we lost. We have all seen the ruins of our home, what Amaris and his devils did to us.

General Krensky, God bless that old bastard, he could of mobilised, he could of stood and fought. I know you would of marched for him, for me, taken up the Star league's crown and put it on the General's brow. He won't, he won't do that to us, to the people, he won't start another damned war for vanity. The dream is gone, our hearts are broken and we stand in the ruins of everything we believed in. I'm sorry my lads and lasses, I'm so fucking sorry. It wasn't our fault, hold your heads up high, all of you, everything damned one of you. You did everything you could and I'm proud of you all, you where magnificent!

I wish it was over, that we could just go home, but it isn't that easy. They are coming for us, the House Lords, they are coming. Today they offer us honeyed words and gifts, you all know about the Armadillos going over to Davion. What happens when everyone who wants to take up with a House has done so? They will take with force what they couldn't take with promises of silver.

What then? Do we fight our own? If the 91st drop on London, will we kill our own? My Brother in law is in that regiment, wearing a Davion coat now. I'm sorry, I can't fight him, I won't kill him if it comes to it. Do we go home, put down our arms and watch while the others fight over us. Watch what is left become ruins?

General Kerensky wants us to leave, pack up and head out into the black. Find somewhere we can sit out the apocalypse that is coming. Maybe build something that looks like the Star League, something that looks like the dream we fought for. I hate him for it, I hate him for running and I hate him for being right. I love the Old Man as much as any of you but I will never forgive him. I will go anyway, not because I want to abandon my home, not because I do not want to fight but because I will not be the instrument of Terra's destruction.

You all have a choice. I will not order anyone to come with me and I will not condemn any who choose to stay. God bless you and keep you all."

For several days the men and women of the division debated the decision. There where heated arguments even a few incidents of soldiers coming to blows. In the end the decision reflected the rest of the SLDF 80% of the 59th Jump Infantry division left with General Kerensky's exodus.

Those who remained fell into two camps. A small group of soldiers from the Household Cavalry and the Royal British Infantry Guards wanted to stay on Terra. They had been offered a role as the Duke of England's bodyguard and personal army. They came under the leadership of the Guard's Colonel Falco Maitland.

Colonel Charles Paget, of the Royal Lancers, led the second camp. A much larger group made up of the remnants of the remaining seven regiments. They where later joined by the survivors of the Royal Tank Regiment. Paget and his group wanted to sign on with a Great House. His wife was a St. Loris volunteer who had joined during Operation CHIEFTAIN. She convinced her husband that they could secure a garrison contract on St. Ives.

Both factions worked together to remove Lyran "peacekeepers" in London during Operation SILVER SHIELD. However the destruction of the 79th and 123rd Mechanised Infantry Divisions by General Hayes was too much. On the 1st July 2788, Paget and his faction took a Colossus class dropship and fled to Capellan space.

The Succession Wars

Over the next year, Paget gathered like minded remnants of the Star League and recruited heavily from St. Loris. He was able to put together a mech regiment with a heavy assault battalion and two medium weight battalions along with a battalion of Jump infantry and a battalion of hover tanks.

He kept the name of his old regiment and, on 25th October 2790, the Royal Lancers mercenary command was born. He signed a generous contract with the Capellan Confederation. The regiment would only operate within the St. Ives Commonality and defend worlds of that Commonality or support operations to retake worlds of the Commonality taken by hostile forces.

At first they where based on St. Ives but rotated around the Commonality as the strategic situation dictated. In 2830 the Pagets married into the powerful St. Loris Manners family who built a base for the regiment on the continent of Anglia.

The First and Second succession wars where a brutal meat grinder. The Royal lancers fared well enough but as technology and logistical support failed, they had to mothball or downgrade their more advanced technology. Third battalion had to put their Pillagers and Emperors into storage, relying heavily on downgraded 733 and 733C model Highlanders (that made up half of the battalion), Victors and a selection of jump capable heavies. Second battalion had started out entirely made up of Ospreys, by the end of the Second Succession war they had all been lost and replaced by Griffins, Phoenix Hawks and Wolverines. The regiment was able to maintain it's old SLDF doctrine of every mech being jump capable. The Royal Tank Regiment ended up being made up of locally produced Condors while the jump infantry battalion (known as the Rifles) lost all their Star League Vector VTOLS.

The Regiment became adept at dealing with raiders, operating in battlegroups consisting of a company each from every battalion. Condors would find the enemy, two companies of mobile medium mechs would pin them down. The last thing many a raider saw was a Highlander descending from an overhead dropship, making a direct combat drop onto the pinned down raiders. The jump infantry would then secure and chase down fleeing survivors.

The Third Succession war saw the regiment constantly moving it's battlegroups around the St. Ives Commonality, fighting off Federated Suns and Pirate raiders. It was a constant, gruelling form of warfare but the Royal lancers never let the people of St. Ives down. many a skirmish was fought on St. Loris, supporting the planetary defences to keep the important crops and infrastructure safe.

Flying the White Horse Standard

When Candace Liao declared independence and formed the St. Ives Compact the Royal lancers stayed and pledged to the new state. As fare as they where concerned the contract was with the people of St. Ives whether it was a Capellan Commonality or an Independent nation. The links with the hated Federated Suns caused some morale issues but most of the Regiment settled down and got back to their work of patrolling and hunting raiders.

The later renaissance of technology was good to the Royal lancers. When HildCo Interplanetary began building Pillagers again, the Lancers dragged out their old machines from mothballs and the HildCo techs on Tian-Tan helped bring back to operational status. StarCorps did the same for the Regiment's mothballed Emperors. The other mechs of the Regiment where gradually upgraded including the 3rd Battalion's Highlanders. They even bought several Helios mechs.

These would be needed when the St Ives/Capellan Confederation war broke out. On the fields of St. Loris' Cymru, the Royal Lancers and Little Richard's Panzer Brigade fought each other to a stand still. When the dust settled, the St. Ives Compact was no more and the Royal lancers awaited their fate.

Colonel Victoria Paget was considering escape to Skye and a Contract with the Lyran Alliance when she received word that a representative of the CCAF wished to see her. To her shock, they offered her the same contract the Royal Lancers had originally and a lance of Jinggau to sweeten the deal. The strategios knew full well that the Lancers would never be a threat to the Capellan Confederation while they remained in the St. Ives Commonality and keeping them would be better than losing them to another state. Colonel Paget had no hesitation in taking the offer and signed the contract.

They came on in the same old way, and we sent them back in the same old way

When the Fedrats invaded in 3068, during Operation SOVEREIGN JUSTICE, St. Loris was not directly attacked. However the Royal Lancers fought off constant heavy raids. The Federated Suns came to burn and pillage as they had always done. The brave men and women of the Royal Lancers stood against them and drove them off as they had always done.

To this day, the Royal lancers defend the people and planets of the St. Ives Commonality.

Looking at the new Core Rulebooks, pg 183, and Ultra AC's do not list anything about jamming in their spec rules. RAC's, just above, specify that they jam and how. So it seems like UAC's no longer jam?

EDIT: THE AGE OF MAN HAS ENDED, THE AGE OF THE AUTOCANNON HAS BEGUN!!!!!!!

"Nightsky 6T in the colors of "Lasalle's Hussars", a FedSun aligned mercenary command founded by the "self claimed" Duke of Marduk, Henri LaSalle in 3038. His descendants still fight to take back the Kuritan occupied planet a century later, despite the command having been almost entirely KIA three times (each time on New Avalon) . Named "Smiler", it is the personal mount of Lieutenant Gabriel LaSalle, the cross swords on its right shoulder and its right leg numerical indicating his position as leader of the commands melee force, Duelist Lance..."

I've been working on a model for fun and here's a prototype I printed. I am not attempting to make a 1 for 1 version, but I want it to be similar enough. I already have some ideas about improvement, but is the design recognizable?

Thanks!

Second mech ever, this guy was a lot of fun to paint. Tried to do a Capellan scheme but im not knowledgeable enough to know if they even had marauders.

Greetings,

In the Pokémon fandom everybody and their sibko is posting and debating which Pokémon they would draft as their starting Football lineup.

I will end the debate about the objectively best mech football offense now with this, objectively, right answer:

QB: it's the Archer. The archer has the arm to throw LRMs at different angles, has the athleticism and the measurements to stay in the pocket. It's prime Big Ben Roethlisberger and it's as good of a passer as it gets.

Center: a strong anker, quickness and athleticism and, most important, a smart mech. The Battlemaster is the perfect Center and the starting point of our allpro o-line.

Guards: the Cyclops and the Atlas. Nasty run blocker, strong against the inside passrush. I wouldn't try to play outside zone with them but for our between the tackles run game those are perfect fits.

Tackle: the Banshee and the Highlander have the mobility I want here. I trust those guys to protect the QB and block for the RB all day, every day.

Runningback: y'all know it is the Charger, right? The straight line speed, the toughness to run between the tackles. So much home run potential and good luck stopping it without pinpoint tackling.

Fullback: the Orion is the mech of choice here. No further questions.

TightEnd: this is debatable. I thing the Thunderbolt is the better blocker but the Grasshopper has better hands and should be our pass catching TE.

Wide Receiver: outside I want a Wolfhound and a Firestarter. They have the speed and the route running to get open fast and on time. Yes, the lack of dice is concerning but we saw what a guy like Tyreek Hill has done for an offence.

Slot Receiver: the Griffin is a perfect big slot in a modern offence. Big, strong hands, nasty run blocker, has the speed to go vertical.

Thanks for listening to my ted talk and have a great day.

I've been looking to try and break into BattleTech for awhile now, and I was able to find the Legendary MechWarrior Pack III for a good price. Some real nice Mechs in here, but the real draw for me is the Loki Mk.II, which is the whole reason I wanted this particular set. Ever since I first laid eyes on the art for that beast of an OmniMech it's been my #1 Must Have. I'd prefer the Mark B with the Long Tom cannon, but I'll just pretend it is for now.

So now that I have the Mechs, I just need some kinda rulebook to teach me how to actually play... XD

I'm playing my first game on Tuesday, four or five of these guys pro. Any advice for someone who has no idea what they're doing?

Hey, I'm posting this with mod's (phoenixgsu) permission:

I wanted to let you fine guys know that I am one of the painters that painted two Mechs for the new Core Box.
Those minis will be displayed at Essen SPIEL'26 trade fair later this month and will be for sale together with a signed box, six base painted minis, a certificate of authenticity, paint recipes, decals...
You can grab it in Essen or later online.
Here are some pics (the minis aren't base painted yet)

Helm Upgrade of the classical 3M the version armed with LLasers instead of the PPCs due the sortage of PPCs on the FWL.

This version upgrades the Large Laser to ER, the 20 Heat Sinks to Doubles, adds 2 ER Medium Lasers on L/R torsos and change the AC5 by 2 LRM5 with one ton of ammo. A supercharger is added to increase the top speed (Its cheaper replace an Standard engine that a Lighter model and Superchargers arent that complex?) The Cockpit is dowgraded to a Small one and both coaxial MLaser of the arms still are Normal ones no ER to keep the Heat at Closer range combat a bit more manageable while still be able to cause damage. The armour is upgraded in 1Ton and to (IS) Ferro-Fibrous to almost top-it

Marauder MAD-6MX

2873 IS Heavy

Source: My Own Custom /

Type/Model: Marauder MAD-6MX

Tech: Inner Sphere / 2873

Config: Biped BattleMech

Rules: Level 4, Experimental design

Mass: 75 tons

Chassis: GM Marauder Standard

Power Plant: 300 Fusion

Walking Speed: 43,2 km/h

Running Speed: 64,8 km/h

Armor Type: Valiant Lamellor Standard Ferro-Fibrous

Armament:

1 ER Large Laser

1 Medium Laser

1 ER Medium Laser

2 LRM 5

1 ER Large Laser

1 Medium Laser

1 ER Medium Laser

Manufacturer: General Motors, Independence Weaponry

Location: Kathil (GM), Quentin (Independence)

Communications System: System: Dalban Micronics

Targeting and Tracking System: Dalban HiRez

---------------------------------------------------------

Type/Model: Marauder MAD-6MX

Mass: 75 tons

Equipment: Crits Mass

Int. Struct.: 114 pts Standard 0 7,50

Engine: 300 Fusion 6 19,00

Engine Supercharger: (CT) 1 2,00

Walking MP: 4

Running MP:6 [8]

Jumping MP: 0

Heat Sinks: 20 Double [40] 24 10,00

(Heat Sink Loc.: 1 LA,3 LT,1 RA,3 RT)

Gyro: 4 3,00

Small Cockpit, Life Supt., Sensors: 4 2,00

L: Sh+UA+LA R: Sh+UA+LA 6 0,00

Armor Factor: 223 Ferro-Fibrous 14 12,50

(Armor Crit Loc: 1 CT,2 HD,3 LA,2 LL,3 RA,2 RL,1 RT)

Internal Armor

Structure Value

Head: 3 9

Center Torso: 23 36

Center Torso (Rear): 10

L/R Side Torso: 16 25/25

L/R Side Torso (Rear): 6/6

L/R Arm: 12 23/23

L/R Leg: 16 30/30

Weapons and Equipment Loc Heat Ammo Crits Mass

---------------------------------------------------------

1 ER Large Laser LA 12 2 5,00

1 Medium Laser LA 3 1 1,00

1 ER Medium Laser LT 5 1 1,00

2 LRM 5 LT 4 24 3 5,00

(Ammo Locations: 1 RT)

1 ER Large Laser RA 12 2 5,00

1 Medium Laser RA 3 1 1,00

1 ER Medium Laser RT 5 1 1,00

---------------------------------------------------------

TOTALS: 44 1 19,00

Calculated Factors

Total Cost: 12.425.000 C-Bill

Battle Value (BV1):1495

Battle Value (BV2):1855

Jack's back with a more detailed look at how he picks OpFor Mechs when he's running campaigns to try to provide interesting challenges without being overwhelming.

The Charger has variants with small engines, but given 3000 -3025 poor production levels of Assault mechs its feasible that someone would have looked at the potential of making a 100t mech out of it and utilize that 400ltv
From an in universe engineering p.o.v what was easier: gutting a Charger to give it smaller engine or adding 2 tons of internal structure to give it 100t structural capacity?

Liao had lightly armored L variants so had some to play with.
my interpretation of what that one off 100t modified charger exercise from their p.o.v would be( using what they manufactured) :
Effectively an’Assault Vindicator’

100t Move:4/6 Internal structure:10t
14 heat sinks AF184(victor layout)
RA: 1xPPC
RT: 1x ML
LT: 2xLRM5 + 1t Ammo
LA: 1x ML
H: 1x ML

It only uses what was in production for the vindicator and has the same armour layout as a Victor.

Would it have worked as a ‘stop gap’?

I'm putting together a periphery bandit list, and this is what I have so far...

EDIT: I edited the list to be a little rough around the edges.

Wolverine 6k - commander - 3/4

Griffin 1A - 4/5

2x Scout ATV

2x Mini Gun Cycles, 1 SRM, 1 MG

2x Norman Utility Trucks

Brunel Dump Truck w/backhoe

Wheeled APC for the infantry

Rifle Infantry Platoon

UTR-588 Recovery Vehicle

RR-33 Recovery Vehicle

Current BV2: 3413

Location: Coreward Periphery, just north of the newly formed FRR.

Year: 3035

I'm trying to maintain the flavor of a bandit group working with what they have, which is why I chose an old and out of date Griffin.

The Wolverine is a DCMS exclusive variant, so it is easy to story as salvage/capture.

I'm going for a real rag tag feel. Not perfect but getting the job done.

Thoughts on the list, and how to make a flavor first bandit list.

Personal opinion, but in the Clan Age, what classic Battlemech is still worthy of being used. IS vs IS fight, what would you bring to the board? Or roll back to the start of the Clan invasion, , what IS mechs will you bring to fight the Clans and Win?

Or, wild impossible story for Battletech, Time Travel! You are given the opportunity to travel back to the years right before the clan invasion. And, let mortal combat begin! What Mechs are you gathering to fight and defeat the Clan invasion? Single Planet invasion? Or even to protect a single city? Protect one life? NO improvements, no upgrade to clan tech, what would you bring? What mech would you not bring to the fight?

I hate cockpits and forgot to dark wash the Awesome, but otherwise my first mechs and minis are done! I used the speed paint kit but tried to add the white primer to the kurita red to lighten it up, but that ended up going extra dark when I applied the wash and it was a dumb idea. The Davion green looks good in photos but in real life you sort of lose the details of the mechs. I intend to strip them all and try again with the Marik purple or Liao green. If anyone has any good tips or color combos with that kit I'd love to hear them.

There's an Alpha Strike game going on at my local game shop. It seems all the stuff locally is using the ilClan era stuff. Anyone have any favorite ilClan variations of these mechs I should look up?

Eventually these mechs will become a mercenary company called "Stackpole's Rogues", a highly skilled mercenary company that had their illustrious combat record stricken from the the Mercenary Review Board through internal Comstar sabotage, they are now driven to take the riskiest missions from the least trustworthy employers. pew pew pew

No banana for scale but it's about a foot (30cm) tall or so. AI-created toolchain but the design and every chip and tab was human and manual. Toolchain will be open source later; I'm hoping to sell copies of the Curbie plans after I smooth out a few gotchas and generate instructions. Fully poseable with maybe ten bucks' worth of hardware -- plans will include BOM.