The
first succession war was one of excess; rivaled perhaps only by the latest war-crime ridden conflict of the
Word of Blake Jihad. The Battletech universe has always been built on the foundations of nuclear, biological and chemical catastrophe of the early succession wars as a way to create the dystopian feudal future of the games 'start' in 3025. It was a plausible way to capture that historic 'middle ages' feel after the height of the Star League (Rome, if you will). The Word of Blake Jihad felt very similar as a way to 'reset' the universe after the Clan invasion era ushered in large scale conflict - though the
FedCom civil war was an admirable attempt at recreating the lance on lance skirmish gaming of the 3025 era.
What does this meandering have to do with todays miniatures? Today we draw inspiration for the
Capellan Confederations practice of throwing around atomics as a means of quick objective raids on its
Free Worlds League neighbor in 2793. Following a rather disastrous start to the war the Capellans sought to capitalize on a minor victory in 2793 by raiding across the boarder to keep there foes off balance. From an operational perspective, if you keep in mind that the goal is the destruction of a single piece of infrastructure on a world you don't own and have no invested interest in preserving, the deployment of rapid air raids armed with
tactical nuclear weapons (Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons - NSNW - in the parlance of today) actually makes a lot of sense. You require no ground force, and only a few aerospace fighters have to make it thru to the target. In the unlimited war of the early succession wars period this seems like a very reasonable activity. What can you say, war extrapolated to the stars makes WMD use a lot more appealing.
For this vignette I chose a raid on
Oriente detailed int the 1st succession wars sourcebook as my inspiration. It describes how a single dropship, one presumes a
Leopard CV made a suicidal run on Oriente's Magna Fusion Products factory complex located in the southern valleys of the Navarran continent. The factory was destroyed by 2
Alamo class nuclear missiles carried to the target by a single squadron of aerospace fighters. The source does not describe the fighter types, however when you review the early source material like the original TRO 3025 you find that all the Capellan aerospace fighters were made after this mission. As a result I went with an older deign which was common in Capellan units at the time - The
LTN-G15 Lightning.
For this model I made some adaptions. Firstly I went with the amazing proxy miniature made by Steel Warrior Studios and titled the
SWS-G16S Storm Chaser. I purchased this originally from
Aires Games and Miniatures but it is also available with alternate configurations direct from Steel Warrior Studios. I bough the model with a prominent nose gun system, which after the fact I realized probably represents the Gauss Rifle of the SLDF Royal variant - but its all good. I think it looks cool representing a nose mounted A/C-20 for the low tech original variant. These models are roughly sized equivalent to the new
Shilone plastic mini's produce by catalyst, so a big larger than the Iron Wind Metals or the old school Ral Partha sizing - but I like the scale, lets you get nice detail in.
To finish up the look I kit-bashed some ordinance from
IG Makes Sam Platoon models. IGMakes on etsy makes great original miniatures for the 6mm scale; he is a battletech enthusiast so has an eye for making proxies at this scale and feel of the BT universe. Check his stuff out; I recently used his buggy's as infantry motorized proxies and they turned out great (look for a future post with these).
After my experience making multiple plane battlespace miniatures I wanted to look to a similar process to make the flight bases for these. The placement of a centerline Alamo missile prevents the straight support pole common with IWM models so I used a thin bit of hobby wire with a wide width I picked up at Michaels as the base. I really like how this turned out and the flat surface was easy to work with.
Lacking any detail on the unit that was responsible for the attack on Oriente I decided to go with Capellan navy colors of gray and Liao green. I chose a cold grey and a flat green from Vallejo. Only after I did this paint scheme did I realize its the same colors and accents as the Atrean Dragoons I did early - oh well, its a big universe and only so many color schemes to go around. Missiles are a Vallejo grey-green color, with engine exhaust a mix of Games Workshop dark red, blood angel red and a Vallejo high-vis orange - the kind of orange you would see on a VS-17 panel. Cockpit is my standard Blue-Gray for aerospace cockpits.
Sources:
1st Succession War - Page 80
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