Painting Lore: Miniatures Inspired by the Story

  The completed Kell Hounds Battalion.  This is compiled of two companies directly from the Kell Hounds sourcebook and one company from the Battle of Luthien sourcebook.  Much of the Kell Hounds history is wrapped up in three phases, the pre-4th succession war lore surrounding the founding and later break up of the unit, the fourth succession war and aftermath when he Genyosha were there arch rivals, and then the Clan Invasion.  I tried to capture all three eras in the creation of this battalion formation.  Lets me play across the early, late, renaissance and clan invasion eras which is where most of my time is spent presently until I can fully get caught up on the lore leading to the Ilkhan era.

 So if you have been on this blog much you know I am obsessed with support units; infantry, Armor, artillery - its what makes Battletech so great; you can simulate entire conflicts in campaigns spanning months of combat if you wanted to.  As my collection grows I decided to create a series of unit logos for my support regiments in the DCMS.  Since I am building this around a Sword of Light Regiment I mostly choose from that, with a few exceptions. The 3rd Luthien Guards ; known as the Stormwalkers, were an armor regiment assigned to the 2nd Sword of Light regiment.   The 25th Light Horse Regiment actually only gets a very short mention in the defense of Vega under Teddy Kurita  In the novel Heir to the Dragon he is said to have directed the 25th Light Horse away from the advancing Lyrans due to the light weight of there armor forces indicating a light and medium unit, perhaps with hover craft. The 71st Mechanized was an infantry unit assigned to the 2nd ...

The venerable weapons carrier platform is one of the most beloved systems in Battletech - and frankly one of the most realistic.  In a game filled with over-gunned systems the weapon carrier is a simple design - a tracked chassis designed to slowly grind as much of a single weapon type into range as possible.  As a dedicated support platform it can't be beat.   This is a DCMS weapons company sporting a platoon each of LRM, SRM and A/C carrier models.  The LRM and SRM are the new Catalyst game labs models which are outstanding representations.  There are a lot of really good 3d prints out there as well, but I had these on hand and no other specific use for them so I put them into the DCMS regiment - in this case a the last company of a medium armor battalion of the 3rd Luthien Guards.  Note the custom 3rd Luthien Guards logo. The A/C carrier is from Locust Labs and probably the most aesthetically pleasing takes on the A/C carrier model.  I had ori...

AI Colorized photo from the Luthien  Scenario pack. The Kell Hounds are a perennial favorite in the setting, always putting the Lyrans in a good light they are the poster boys for the 'good' mercs, same as the Wolf's Dragoons.  Its one of the reasons why I am not a huge fan of them - but they are iconic and they played a significant role in most of the late succession war and early clan invasion era so I felt compelled to complete this project.  This company, inspired mostly from the Luthien Scenario pack, is also my first foray in the clan invasion era.  This is consistent with that first generation of upgraded machines which attempted to match the clans in tech, and generally did not live up the hype - but still generally lived longer than there no-case carrying center torso loaded ammo death lockers of 3025 era.  It also completes the Kell Hound Battalion project, making a full battalion of late succession and early clan invasion mercs for scenario play....

Not a specific unit or time period for this one, but rather another Terrain project... this one was a lengthy effort but I love the way it turned out.  This is a 3d printed building terrain for the CGL Lunar Base battle mat provided in part by the great skulpts of GHIBtech .  This vendor created some great domes which really do a fantastic job of translating the 2d images on the map.  I then had some hextech structures from other maps, mostly the FOB and Commo Center file sets; adapted to fit the make up of this base - which I think they do an admirable job of.  The glass in the domes are done with a speed paint - which took forever but translates well I think. GHITBtech now has another version which prints without the 'glass' part making it just lattice work open to see the inside, which I have seen others use some LED lights to give it a glow which looks really cool... but I had already bought these, and besides they are super sturdy as single units.  Now on t...