Painting Lore: Miniatures Inspired by the Story

Detailed in the short story at the front of Historic Turning Points: Mallory's World is the death of Ian Davion, first prince of the Federated Suns at the hands of Yorinaga Kurita in 3013.  This contest is the origin story of a number of story arcs which feed into the 4th Succession War, and in some ways underpin the Kell Hound narratives into the clan invasion era as well.  This period marks the high water mark of the 3rd Succession wars as a number of key events leading into the founding era of 3025 are begun in the 3010's. In preparation for invasion of Halstead Station; and the retrieval of Lostech believed to be found there, Ian was caught out by a surprise attack on his staging point on Mallory's World.  There his 4th Davion Guards fought a running battle with the 2nd Sword of Light; culminating in his holding action in a valley where he single handedly faced down the assault of the Kurita regiment to by his forces time to withdraw.  In the contest Yorinaga Kur...

I always look to the original source material for inspiration, and after paining an Atlas in classic House Kurita colors I wanted to build a company of the same to round everything out.  Since I made a one off Atlas that means going into the Lore to find other one offs to make a lance.  As always I found great stuff in the original 3025 tech readout.   In 2931 a lone House Kurita mechwarrior; no doubt piloting a hand me down family owned Archer; was posted to keep sentinel over Repair and Replacement Station 241. Suizo Ozawa patrolled his small patch on Chian keeping this lone repair station operating as it toiled to make good all the ravages of the succession wars.  In 2931 it was raided by the Bandit King Helmar Vasek, and after several hours of fighting the game was about up for Suizo.  Rather than surrender; run away from his duty he did what a good Samurai of the Dragon does, and he went down swinging - detonating his own 'Mechs fusion reactor to elimi...

I do enjoy the infantry - I know they are not especially useful in the tabletop in most scenarios but in the lore they do make up the bulk of fighting forces, its just that they don't get the glory of there mechwarrior brethren.  So I decided to do a little homage to the Jump Infantry - and practice my jump jet effects in the process, which I think is an improvement over several other attempts at jump jets on mechs and infantry. This is a little pallet cleansing jump infantry platoon 'Ociern's Crashers' taken from the Kell Hound novellas detailing the start up of that famous mercenary outfit.  Major Ociern signed on in the early days to provide the infantry forces to Morgan Kell's mech outfit, suppling them with a veteran jump infantry company.  Its detailed in the lore that the Crashers were more than line jump infantry, more akin to a ranger company - men skilled in the finer points of direct action like hostage rescue, sniping, and the like.  In addition I wanted...

Galatea - Home of mercenary recruitment before the days of Wolf's Dragoons and Outreach.  Although not the only place to hire a sell sword or a gun hand in the Inner Sphere, it was certainly a thriving mercenary hiring location in the early 3000's.  It was this time period that the Kell Hounds novellas centering around there founding take place, and one of the founding stories is that of the Maji Rebels and there action against the world government. The Kell Hounds had just begun forming up, having accepted Ociern's Crushers as there infantry contingent and looking at bringing in a host of new mercenary MechWarrior's when they were approached to help put down a faction of religious fanatics - Church of the Majificient - who had rebelled in the worlds industrious agricultural belt.  The threat of starving out the city forced the local governor to request the employment of the Kell Hounds; and they dutifully went to put down the rebellion. The rebels were rag tag but devo...

  Ah; the Atlas.  When I first got into the game I was introduced with the Battletech 4th Edition box set; with its iconic cardboard stand in pieces and above all else its iconic Atlas on the cover missing right arm and all.  Everyone knew that in 3025; at least in terms of 'standard' variants listed in the original tech stats the Atlas was king of the field.  So I knew I wanted to do an Atlas which harkened back to the initial feel of the game, and that meant going all the way back to the original 3025 tech manual and looking at the fluff surrounding the mech. Being a House Kurita loyalist I was immediately drawn to doing an Atlas in the traditional House Kurita red and black as the original TRO describes Warlord Cherenkoff as driving one.  I have up until now avoided doing the 'traditional' red and black of house Kurita for a simple reason - no DCMS brigade actually paints there units this way.  For all the general lore around Kurita forces being bested b...