Chain Gang Lance Expansions - 2nd Succession War

- May 13, 2023

I have done two other posts so far about the Coordinator's Chain Gangs, and as I was surveying my collection I realized that having just 2 mechs in a paint scheme was aggravating my OCD nature so I decided to fill out those lances with complimentary mechs fitting the time and lore of each project.

For the first Chain Gang project I did I referenced the initial lore for this peculiar bit of succession war history - a side panel describing a raid on Maetsu using a demi-company or reinforced lance of LAM's. The details can be found in the original blog post here. This project originally leveraged some old school lead Ral Partha LAM models I had acquired from Ebay, and I had another LAM project (Eridani Light Horse company described in this post) which used up the remaining models all except one Wasp. It took me a while to find antoher LAM model to finish this lance, but I did finally come across one to round out Chain Gang 23's lance - making it 1 Pheonixhawk LAM, 2 Stinger LAMs (Kurita did have a factory for these in the Rasalhague District after all) and 1 Wasp LAM. This classic combo of the original sculpts are all painted the same camo pattern which I was inspired to try from the artwork accompanying the side panel in the House Kurita sourcebook.

The second update I wanted to do was for the raid on Udibi. For this one I had used the story panel from House Davion regarding a Kurita Chain Gang raid on the planet where an old Kurita Mechwarrior had fallen in love with his lance mate, a former 'unproductive'. You can read about the tale here; but suffice to say it was an interesting footnote which I draw so much of my material from. I choose to go on to another raid to finish a lance out in the same Rhodesian Brushstroke inspired pattern, this time using a passing reference to another raid on Kobe. In this raid Sven Harlock, who is rebel from the free Rasalhague movement, was placed in charge of a force of probably less than company size to raid Kobe, destroying its water processing plant. On the way to what they thought was there extraction the group ran into a group of pirates, and with Lyran reinforcements about to make everyone's extraction difficult the leaders of the two groups - Sven and the Pirate gangs leader - dueled for right of command. In the end the Rasalhague native won, and a new mercenary unit - Harlock's Raiders - was born. No specifics are given in regards to mechs, so I looked around at my already printed misfit mechs and choose two which I thought were fitting.

The first was an Ostroc/Ostwar hybrid, the look of which was in the original 3025 TRO - and later retcon'ed to explain it was a succession wars hybrid. I thought that this was a fitting mech on a one way raid that the combine would not expect to get back. The second was a Hunchback model, though one of the more radically altered versions to make it look more 'Samurai'. I actually like this aesthetic, but it is perhaps best left in the later Jihad or Dark Ages era's where the aesthetic does not clash with the dystopian held-together-with-duct-tape feel of the succession wars. I painted both in the same style as the previous raid on Udibi - not because there is lore to back this up but instead because I wanted a full lance of mechs in the same style.

This is completes the first two lances of the Chain Gang company I have planned, the next post will cover the final lance - which in my opinion came out pretty good in terms of paint scheme. My OCD side can rest knowing I now have a full company of Lord Kurita's chain gang to deploy on there one way trip to honor.