Mercer Ravannion - STG-3R Stinger

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Everyone's favorite cautionary tale, Tai-i Mercer Ravannion was one of those characters so inspiring he ended up referenced as side note in several sources.  He was famous for pushing a tactic where by a group of small, fast and expendable machines would swarm a larger mech trading several light replaceable losses for a single larger enemy unit.  This tactic is born of the late succession wars era where (if you read the early fiction) Stingers and Wasps are a dime a dozen but the bigger machines are harder to come by.  While speed has some advantage a Wasp or Stinger is woefully under-gunned and poorly armored - and for some unknown reason everyone put Machine Guns on things back then.  Which tend to blow up.  Seems like bad defense engineering.

Ravannions experiments are covered in TRO-3025 in the Stinger and Blackjack entries as well as in the Fox's Teeth scenario book which describes a battle set-up in detail.  In the Fox's teeth entry Ravannion pilots a Wasp; and although I debated using that mech as the one I modeled I choose to use a Stinger partly due to its entry in TRO 3025 but also because my GDL project has 2 wasps already in one of the lances and I wanted something else to paint.  Mercer Ravannion is described as being ravaged by McKinnons Raiders in the scenario book (unsurprising if you see the scenario) in 3019 and again in 3022 when he is described taking on Blackjacks.  His death is recorded on Fallon II fighting McKinnons Raiders in 3023.  

Ravannion was never mentioned belonging to a specific unit, and in fact is described as leading his own 'Test Unit' which sounds like something which gets thrown together wherever he lands and convinces a general to part with a few 20 ton recon mechs.  As such I am free to paint what I like; which is always fun.  So for this one I painted a camouflage pattern - because anyone running around in a Stinger around heavy or competent mediums needs all the help they can get.  I choose a subdued high desert color scheme reminiscent of WWII Africa camo schemes (or what I think of in that sense). 





For this model I worked with Vallejo Model Color US Field Drab as a base coat.  I then applied mottled Orange Brown, U.S. Olive Drab and Black Grey as the camo pattern.  My standard gunmetal gray weapons, Agrax Earthshade, Tesserect Glow Cockpit and Bahrath Blue weapons glow was also applied.  All decals are my own.  This was a fun one to paint, and I am very happy with how this camo pattern turned out - feels very retro and grungy, just like this period in BT history should.

If you want to try this out, links to the paints mentioned below:

Sources:
TRO 3025 (Original) - Stinger and Blackjack Entries
The Fox's Teeth Scenario - The Swarm's Sting

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