Well another long day at work is over and I find myself perusing back through the many rambling posts I have made over the last couple of years and am struck by one series in particular. In AN ALTERNATIVE BATTLETECH UNIVERSE, I pondered the creaking monstrosity that is Battletech, a game with so much going for it if it wasn't for the creaky rules and frankly rather terrible mech designs.
In said article, I spent a great deal of time waffling about how great the setting was (it still is!) and what a shame that the rules and figures didn't quite live up to the setting. Following this I spent a fair amount of time painting up some Davion mechs and one or two bits and bobs for a Draconis Combine force too before suffering the usual wargamers malaise and flitted onto other projects.
Davion Mechs in action!
My Davion Force
Draconis Combine!
Mech V Mech Slugging Match
Davion Ace Mech Pilot Kitty deVries
Mechs on maneuver
At the time I thought the mechs looked great but comparing them to my newest Mechwarrior Darkage repaint, I must admit I'm underwhelmed. Combine this with the joy of unpacking them after moving house to discover that several of them were in multiple pieces, and you can kind of see how the project ground to a halt.
But wait! If I compare my Battletech post with what I've been doing with Rogue Trader, its interesting to see how both are starting to cross over. This has given me a fresh bout of enthusiasm for dusting off the stuff I have, repainting it where required and trying to make a fresh go of breathing a bit of life into the setting and reliving a future originally penned in the 1980s which is every bit as involved and interesting as the 40k one but with a healthy dose of hope running through it! Yes the place has become a neofeudal tech poor shadow of its former self but it doesn't mean that humanity isn't still inspired to try to improve itself!
In other news, I am also still pondering the possibility of giving both Dark Age and Infinity a bash but I am going to wait till the end of the month when I get paid to decide whether I want to test out the waters or not!
Either which way, I hope to be able to do some painting of more of my leadpile before I shell out any more of my hard earned pennies on new shiney things!
All the best!
I certainly loved Battletech back in the day....I may have played that even more often that WFB...so I'm quite curious to watch your project unfold. Also I think some of these mechs youve shown could be used as robots in RT 40k Very easily!
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