Hsien Hotheads - Karnov UR Transports

How every Karnov pilot feels flying back to base 
after a successful beer run.

I have always loved the odd ball units in Battletech, especially when it comes to campaign operations.  And VTOL units definitely fit that mark.  They are deathly fragile when exposed to direct fire, and doubly so once the LBX autocannons were introduced, but when you know how to handle them they can be loads of fun.  And for that reason I am kicking off what I am calling my VTOL project with a pair of the classic VTOL transport - the Karnov UR Titlrotor.

If you read thru the old school tech readouts you will find accounts of that particular unit in combat operations, and in the original 3026 readout they recount the use of Karnov UR transports by the Hsien Hotheads to do some fast recovery on mechs and there pilots. In 3012 Hsien Hotheads were on a raid into Marik space which quickly began to go south.  With a mech company crippled by mines and in need of a hasty retreat the hotheads  commander ordered his platoon of Karnov's to sling load the damaged mechs back to the pickup zone.  Marik infantry observed the first lift, taking a full lance out before they could get organized, on the second lift attempt the infantry managed to down one of the VTOLs, however the other 3 made a successful extraction.  Thru the afternoon the VTOLs extracted the entire company, but lost another aircraft to the infantry ground fire.  On one last run in to retrieve the flight crews by the remaining 2 aircraft finally pushed there luck to far when a Rifleman appeared on the scene and delivered withering AA fire, downing the final two birds.

Tilt-rotor Slingload is an option

As with most accounts in the BT universe the conventional units usually end up meeting the business end of a mech and go out in a blaze of glory.  But one thing was interesting here - sling loading down mechs is a thing.  I have not read the rules to verify this actually is the case but in campaign operations snatching salvage - especially clan tech salvage if you play in the clan invasion era, can be a very neat trick.

Original 3026 Artwork

For this project I found .STL files for the Karnov UR Transport with rotors down in flight that used the original artwork, and somehow it felt appropriate.  I actually like a lot of the modern interpretations of the Karnov but the original artwork gets a salute here.  I did have a learning curve on the rotors, and if you look close the blade circles I used are just not quite right - but they are too difficult to redo easily and they are good enough for now.  3d printing rotor blades is a tricky business.

The Hsien Hotheads use a black paint scheme with a flaming cockpit motif - and while I admire the skill of the painters who do that kind of work on Camospecs I was not going to have the skill to pull that off.  I went with a Vallejo black grey for the base color with Games Workshop Evil Sunz red applied in a light coat over the black.  The cockpits are done in Blue Grey by Vallejo - which is my vehicle and aerospace cockpit standard.  A little bit of silver on the engine exhaust and you can call it good.

This was a quick and fun little project which was one of the first things I printed on my resin printer - which quickly spiraled into all kinds odd ball units getting printed.  In the future I will be uploading some custom kitbashed units for things like the Grey Death Legion Weapon Troop Transport and such, but those are yet to come... for now here are the beginning air lance of Karnov UR transports for my soon to be VTOL company - wing - regiment, who knows...

Sources:

3026 Technical Readout (Original)