Painting Lore: Miniatures Inspired by the Story

I keep coming back to LAM's as I work thru the old school lore.  Apparently back in the 80's mechs which convert from air to ground modes were all the rage - I know I know, macross inspired (stolen) ideas etc but they seem like they are all over the lore despite how rare they reportedly were.  Whatever the reason I had a new set of sculpts for LAMs and a need to fill out a composite regimental command lance of one-off pilot entries and so I went back to the LAM well on this one - a PHX-HK2 Phoenix Hawk LAM assigned to the 7th Sword of Light. In this case the pilot, Lt Albert Amdecker (and yes it should be Chu-i but this is the original 3025 TRO content) was actually an aero-jock in 3017 at the Battle of Suk.  Things did not go well on the Kurita side and Amdecker found himself one of the few survivors in the assault force, having his entire squadron downed around him in the action.  For his bravery he was promoted to lead the 14th Air Lance of the 7th Sword of L...

The Galleon Light Tank is one of the OG units of Battletech.  Right up there with the mobile Long Tom, the Hunter and the Vedette, this unit appears in a lot of the original lore before more home grown units like the Demolisher or the Shrek took center stage.  The Galleon first showed up in the original 3025 technical readout, and like a dozen or so of the most iconic Battemechs from that TRO, it was stolen from a Japanese anime called Crusher Joe.  They even kept the name - Galleon. Original Crusher Joe Art In its original imagery, which was basically identical to the Crusher Joe anime version, it had a Medium Laser basically jutting from its top without any real turret and two side laser barrels in effectively sponsons.  This classic light tank showed up in all kinds of early lore, most prominently in the Gray Death trilogy when a company of them assaulted the Legion on there landing at Verthandi. In its later era revamp the artwork was redone to avoid copyright 30...

I have always enjoyed the old school lore, especially the scenario packs from the very beginnings of the Battletech universe.  Recently Catalyst has really brought back that deep lore with there Shrapnel magazine and short stories, as well as going back and bringing in things like the Whirlwind and Harrier hover vehicles which had appeared in the old battletechnology magazine series.  With that said one of the Painting Lore goals is to capture all the original scenario books to some extent, always the main battlemech company but also much of the OpFor mentioned.  Here we have a classic, McKinnons Raiders of the 7th Crucis Lancers just before the start of the 4th Succession War. The Crucis Lancers brigade would feature prominently in the 4th SuccessionWar as they gobbled up large swaths of Capelan territory.  McKinnon's Raiders actually appear as part of this units complete TO&E in the original Battleforce as part of 'Vanur's Battalion' as well as being presented ...