The 25mm Warrior

Oh you remember it don't you?

The way your eyes would light up when you saw the object of your affection. How you thoughts would be occupied with it. The excitement you would experience, then way it seemed to soak up all your time. The way tha...

Huh?

Dude, I'm not talking about a girl I'm talking about games. Geeze. This is a gaming blog remember?

My first "gaming" love was Battletech and oh how I was smitten. My twelve year old mind was filled with images of lumbering BattleMechs and stories of great houses vying for control of the universe. I remember how I would look over the rule book trying to wrap my twelve year old mind around things like "line of sight," "terrain modifers," "pluses to hit," and the oh so complicated "death from above." I felt advanced. The rest of the world was playing "regular" games but I was playing a tactical war game.

And as time went on I found other games and more complicated rule set. Battletech became a thing of memory taking its place beside things like He-Man and Captain Power (heh remember that one?). You know the things you did as a kid but rest only in the memory of your childhood?

But what if you could go back?

For my birthday this past year my uncle (who told me I could start playing these games at twelve... never understood why that was the magical age) got me the Classic Battletech boxed set. After tearing that thing open I was quickly reunited with my first love. What a trip it was to see record sheets again, battlemaps and those oh so boxy looking Mechs.

Now I'm not a die hard Battletech fan but it is something I like to breakout every once in awhile and give it a go. The cool thing is the boxed set came with twenty four miniatures which fits in nicely with my painters ADHD I suffer from. This new Battletech is different. Wae website really gave alot of direction in how to paint the minis to be apart of actual units within the game giving the experience more of a context than when I was a kid painting up all the mechs different colors (yes I had a rainbow mech and yes he is in a landfill somewhere).

"Word of Blake religous fanatics from the 7th Division IV-Iota: The Glorious"

Aww... their holding hands. Er guns... er hand in guns. Mech on Mech lovin... umm...

I used a bleached bone basecoat with a light drybrush of white along with metallic highlights around the Mech. The they went for a good dip in TAP


The nice thing about these miniatures is it's kinda hard to screw em up. Any cursory look at the Mechs on the website will tell you that. They come in all different paint schemes. I figured this would be a good time to spread my painting wings a bit and try a color I have never painted before... PURPLE!!!

Again these guys were used with TAP but I took a more detailed approach to painting then is required. Working with Liche Purple I built up the base coat by drybrushing lighter shades made with bleached bone, skull white and a bit of tentacle pink. Then I blacked ink the whole mini and followed up with yet a lighter shade of purple. The highlights are just straight bleached bone.

Then I dipped em.

I followed the Free World League 3rd Marik Militia: Lucky 13th paint scheme. We need some good guys to take down those religious crazies right?


So whatever your first love is I hope you return and find some of the fun I had as a kid (and I do mean games. Please don't call up some girl who broke your heart in high school... that's just creepy).