Thanks to PRI Sponsors

What did not change was the generosity of the event sponsors, who through their combined efforts made for a mountainous pile of raffle prizes. Fortress Miniatures & Games went all in, as ever, with a huge haul of hot, new BattleTech forcepacks and two whole cartons-worth of Mercenaries salvage boxes.

New to the event this year was Darkest Star Games, makers of fine 6mm metal minis, and producers of the hands-down best infantry to be found anywhere. Regular readers and viewers will have seen these before; those are the space suited dudes I feature prominently in my own work. If you participated in and enjoyed your time in the PRI, or just like what I do, make sure you check out the socials and storefronts of both sponsors.

Fortress Miniatures & Games on Facebook
Darkest Star Games Facebook on Facebook

Participants’ Completed Works

Now it is time to check out the sterling, inspiring work of the participants. If you’d rather watch than read, I’ve got video coverage on YouTube. See the assignment lists below so you have a better idea of what they were up against, and then pics of their pieces and commentary. If you, dear reader, would like to get in on the next round keep an eye on the blog here and especially my YouTube channel; Round 5 will very likely be later on in 2025.

THEMES
Spots – Circles, dots, spheres, etc.
Fade – One or more colors shifting to others.
Blobs – Irregular blobs and patches of color.
Blocks – Squares, rectangles, cubes, etc.
Lines – Just what it says. One or more lines, parallel or not.
Camo – Just what it says. Pick or make a pattern and use your colors.
Dazzle – Eye-melting explorations of an evolutionary cul-de-sac in camo theory. I’m praying for you.
Animal Print – Wildlife-inspired patterns. Mammals, fish, birds, insects, reptiles, etc.
Worn and Weathered – Beat and batter your model good and hard. Rust, grime, wear, streaking, scrapes, mud, burns, damage, etc.
Stencilled – Checkers, quadrants, tessellations, tri-color, bi-color and other liveries or distinct graphical embellishments.
Inked – Flames, bones, thorns, tribal motifs, and any other sort of pattern or iconography you’d expect to see on a reasonably tasteful if ill-advised tattoo.
Junkyard – Paint the majority of your model in the assigned colorway. Pick a few parts and paint them differently. Rusty, bare metal, different colors, etc.

COLORWAYS
Desert – Any colors suitable for use in desert environments.
Woodland – M81 and OD enjoyers rejoice.
Jungle – Emerald greens and other conceivably tropical tones
Urban – Grays, black, dusty brown, white, etc.
Arctic – Frigid white, pale gray, frosty blue, anything that says “cold.”
Basic – Pick a color. Use only shades and tints of it.
Lore – Pick a major or minor faction of your choice, one belonging to the lore of your model’s game system or universe, IP and use those colors.
Two-Tone – Pick two complimentary colors. Use those.
Foundry – Chrome, steel, iron, bronze, brass, verdigris, aluminum. Molten slag. Anything that says “metal”.
Hazard – Think heavy equipment manufacturers. Vivid, contrasting oranges, yellows, greens, reds, etc. Tones that will say “danger” in every language.
Oceanic – Bright, clear beachy tones, or dark and unsettling shades from the briny deep. Blues, greens, white foam, tans, yellow, etc.
Galactic – A cosmic palette of black, deep blues, purples, silver, gold, etc. Or anything else that evokes the vastness and mystery of space.

Rob Jensen

Blocks / Woodland

“”My assignment was woodland block. First words: ‘Ugh, f*** me.’ Banes: a project dependent on fine line work with hands as precise as Christmas hams, essential paints and supplies arriving more than two weeks late, massive time crunch. Boons: Enamel washes, weathering pigments, a devil-may-care attitude, a girlfriend that “gets it”, OCD, caffeine, Casamigos tequila, Dragged Across Concrete, Collateral. Mantra: “Aight. Good enough.” Final words: “Nice” a la Southpark ep. 149

Pilot: Maximillian Jogues, named after two priests that were unflinching in the face of death (one in Auschwitz, the other at the hands of Mohawk warriors in 1646). Perfect patrons for someone piloting a 100 ton bullet sponge known as the Imp of War. Paint Roulette Invitational is the most fun I have painting all year. Shits awesome, gets the juices flowing, and it’s a blessing to be able to participate. Let the heavy metal roll. Cheers, man.”

See more of Rob’s work on Instagram.

Michael Van Brunt

Animal Print / Lore

“My assignment was animal pattern and lore, so I was originally thinking of a killer bees paint job and someone beat me to it! So I then found Little Richard’s Panzer Brigade and liked the overall gist of it. I changed the primary color to more of a blue grey, and used a silver metallic to try and get the stripes to pop more. I was inspired to use the cotton balls as a missile smoke trail (since the Catapult launches missiles like they are going out of style), and I used wooden BBQ skewers to look like the missiles in flight. Overall, I’m happy with it.”

Michael Rushford

Inked / Desert

“Here’s my completed mech. I had Desert / Inked as my drawing. The desert colors were obvious but I struggled for a bit with the idea of inked tattoos until I considered using desert-y tattoos, using Navajo / Dine tattoos as inspiration as that tribe lives in the American southwest desert. I tried using a selection of geometric shapes using this site as some inspiration. Not sure if I pulled it off, but it’s my favorite mech I’ve painted ever now, so thanks for the opportunity!
Looking forward to the next challenge!”

Jon Shore

Worn-n-Weathered / Jungle

“These themes combined beautifully. Immediately I had the idea of an all Hunchback raider lance behind enemy lines. Inspired by ‘Merrill’s Marauders’ from WWII. They were undermanned and undergunned, raiding supply points, hitting vital targets and headhunting key officers. ‘Our forces are spread thin on all fronts. We can’t spare any major assets to harass the enemy….But we do have one option….'”

Jon Shore is on Instagram. Contrary to what he says, he does not suck at painting.

Jason Ashley

Junkyard / Desert

Yellow With Hobby

Lines / Foundry

“… Jero never understood why people were always so negative about their family, the Blakes. And, really, the people blasting their mansion with autocannos right now took it to the next level. Fleeing through a little grove to the cemetery, Jero remembered their grandfather. Crazy old man. He used to say: “In the circumstances most dire, to the family crypt the last Blake will retire…”. Jero never took it seriously, but, being apparently the last of their family now, was doing just that. The crypt sat on an odd stone hump with a huge copper cross lying next to it. The crypt door creaked. It was dark and cold inside, the roar of gunfire almost inaudible there. Plaques and names everywhere: on the walls, on the floor. Grandpa is here as well. And one empty niche in the middle of the hall. This is the one, the one for Jero. Wait, is it a hatch? …”

I started brewing the idea from the colorway, foundry, which assumes painting various metal surfaces or “Anything that says “metal”…”. I did not feel excited about attempting a full NMM or TMM mech, so I latched onto the “says metal” part. And few things say “metal” to me more than a spooky crypt. Once I settled on the crypt idea, it was easy to decide what kind of “one or more …, parallel or not” lines I should have on the miniature. Huge thanks to my friend Martin, who, on a very short notice, rescaled, printed and delivered to me the resin spooky bits that turned this plastic Marauder IIc into a stomping crypt with 9 generations of Blakes (probably not even relatives) in it.

In terms of painting I was heavily inspired by works and tutorials of @gardensofhecate Ana Polanšćak and John Blanche. It felt very nice to try painting in a very different style (my usual mechs are much more cartoony) and looking at the figure from a more artsy perspective. Honourable mention to the recently announced Battletech Gothic which certainly helped me arrange the concept pieces together. Inspirations: GardensOfHecate, Mörk Borg, Summoning, Obsequiae, Hermodr, Enslaved, …

Huge thanks to Chad and the sponsors for this event, each year it is a highlight for me! Thanks to all participants, it was fantastic creating and working shoulder to shoulder with you all! Cheers!”

Instagram: / yellow_with_hobby
X: https://x.com/oleg_ywh
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ywh.bsky.social

Tim Saiers

Fade / Woodland

“I’m fairly green to the BattleTech universe outside of watching “Tex talks BattleTech” series. I have had a rifleman 3 and an Atlas printed for some time having been inspired but never got around to painting them. The PRI was a great chance for that and with “Woodland Fade” I opted to try painting the rifleman 3. My understanding is it’s a 1 of 1 prototype mech that was pressed into service during the Amaris civil war and was somewhat of a fever dream of Amaris. Sporting prototype cloaking and carrying enough ammunition for four volleys before being a 90 ton paper weight.

My Imagination was on fire: My cousin recently gave me some gauze for modelling purposes, and I set to work adding this as a tarpaulin/ cover over 1 arm to create some interest in an otherwise symmetrical model. The character of this example immediately became of a lone survivor or veteran mech enduring against all odds, as such I added a rear bustle rack on the rear (bad idea, as I think these are heatsinks!) and made some plasticard ammunition boxes to fill it with to emphasise the long war. I elected to add some additional protection on the left arm and knee in the form of spaced armour inspired by historical photos of panzer IV’s. I then modelled a recent hit to the right shin to further enhance the worn out mech on long deployment theme. I finally added some ERA bricks to random locations in order to alter the silhouette further and try to add interest, but these do get lost very easily.

Painting wise I was a sucker for the hazard stripes of the base mech, my background is in Warhammer and a common effect done for tau stealth suits is the “blue transition cloaking” seen on the mech here. With blessing from the PRI community to take creative liberty on the interpretation of the null signature system, this would cover the “fade” I had leftover olive drab colour modulation paints from a Sherman project, and these would cover the woodland part. For the transition I followed a tutorial by cerxis on YouTube who does a “skin on skin” effect of cloaking which I thought would be perfect to sell the scale of the mech at 10mm. My efforts are crude, but in line with my skill. I emphasised the lack of cloak in the battle damaged and modified areas of the mech to show the field mods not being compatible with the prototype null signature. Some basic OSL and metallic blending was attempted on the barrels to signify heat warp in the long war – Those gauss guns aren’t in spec anymore!

Basing wise, I opted for some cork, wire, and wood skewers I had on hand to aim for some burnt woodland style basing. To try and sell a predator recloaking, after mayhem. On a circular base which I’m sure is sacrilege for the BT initiated. I finally added some grass flock to bring in some contrast to the dark scorched black and brown tones of the base. Overall, a heck of a lot of fun to participate, great for motivation and great to see everyone’s work. Thanks for organising it, Chad!”

Tim is on Instagram.

Takemikazuchi

Spots / Two-Tone

“I got my assignment done and it was a lot of fun! I kinda feel I could have gone more crazy with the circle designs (like adding smaller dots all across the Mech), but I’m perfectly happy with this somewhat more straightforward approach. I also tried around with “non-metallic metallic” techniques on the shoulders, knees, etc. and I think it turned out wonderfully. I attached 5 images below.

As for the Mech: The insignia on the right shoulder is (at least supposed to look like) the Buffalo Quarter, so this is essentially the Guillotine piloted by David Rowsch of Snord’s Irregulars fame. I felt this paintjob would fit nicely with that group lol. I dubbed it the Freckled Freak… though you might also call it the Tomato Titan.
Can’t wait for the next round of PRI!”

Steven Long

Junkyard / Galactic

“The first thing that came to mind was Star Wars, but grey spaceships don’t really look galactic without the space background, so I went with something else from the era – airbrushed vans. I went through my unpainted models for something with a mix of broad panels and exposed components and found a nightstar. I couldn’t get details fine enough to put in some freehand wizards but I’m happy with how the galaxy pattern turned out. A desert base seemed fitting – it’s mostly cork, sand, and discarded bits of sprue to junk it up a bit. I wish I were a better photographer, the weathered edges and rust effect definitely look better in person.

Thank you so much for having me participate in the PRI. It has been an absolute blast watching everyone work through their projects and trying out something new myself.”

Shaun Scott

Lines / Desert

“A LINE IN THE SAND” Tamarind IV, December 3137. Hauptmann Roderick Frost in his Rifleman-IIC holds the line against the First Tamarind Regulars until relief arrives.

My assignment was “Desert/Lines”. For the first two weeks, I didn’t even begin because I couldn’t decide what ‘Mech to paint. Finally I decided to let the luck of the draw decide that, too – and I drew a Rifleman IIC from a blind box (video is on my Coffee Table Combat YouTube channel!) I was inspired by German tank camouflage of World War II. The red and green are in V-shaped lines, less apparent after panel lining and highlighting. I wanted the camo to look authentic without being so realistic that it would “work” and obscure the shape of the sculpt.

I depicted the ‘Mech defending a small oasis, and decided to carry the Desert/Lines assignment over into the title as well.
this was a fun challenge – it got me out of my comfort zone and let me flex my imagination a bit! Regards, HeadHunter

https://coffee-table-combat.blogspot.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@CoffeeTableCombat

Roc / Otso Minis

Lines / Woodland

“I got assigned Woodland and Lines. I thought it was fun and it was the first time I’ve stuck antenna on a mech which was a learning experience for me. I didn’t want to slog through making lines with a brush and do a million different layers on the various line so I thought it’d be quicker and look much cleaner using an airbrush. I primed, sprayed it olive drab, edge highlighted, masked it and moved on to the next color, rinse and repeat for everything. Thanks for running this, it was fun!”

Phillip Hall

Stencilled / Basic

“For the PRI I got the assignment stencilled and basic, so I mixed a little bit of the dark red into nearly every colour I used to get the basic done, except for the white and the bright red glow, those were left untouched by the dark red. For stencilled I thought about painting eyes onto the ship and decided to try owl eyes because the PHR Echo Corvette model I used is a silent but deadly hunter for atmospheric engagements. In Dropfleet there are only a few ships capable of maneuvering in atmosphere and the Echo corvette is the most heavily armed of them.”

Mikael Bergstrom

Camo / Basic

“Is I got Camo – Basic and I wanted to paint up the Valkyrie from the command lance the old NAIS camo seemed perfect. I also have a hard copy of the 1632 Camo Specs which I always come back to. I added yellow to make it a little bit more interesting without using a contrasting color (brown, tan, yellow – same, same…). Bright orange would have worked better I think, but I use yellow for my other FedRats so…”

Matthew Birdsall

Stencilled / Galaxy

“My eyes are bad today so tried a wide variety of lighting. Been suffering from bad picture taking for years so forgive the shot-gun load of sample PRI images.
Galaxy + Stencil. Used thin tape to break up the pattern and free handed silly stars with color fade over color fade. Stone Rhino of the Stars. Red earth on his feet. Feel only okay with the result but it seems to express both galaxy and stencil.
Had a lot of fun doing something I would never have tried otherwise.”

Follow Matt on his Instagram for loads more!

Matthew Ruley

Stenciled / Artic

Miniature: Ice Ferret, Hankyu, Huntsman from Catalyst Games

“First, overall thoughts. When I got my assignment choosing colors was easy, grays and whites with a few blues, no sweat. Stenciled? Was stumped on that one so before going to bed I checked the descriptions you gave for each theme. Upon reading checkers and quadrants I instantly had ideas and jotted three down for my schemes before turning in. Miniature selection was more based off the colors so they would “match.”

This is the first miniature I knocked out. I liked the idea of doing something quadrant based but didn’t want to play the checkered pattern just yet, so instead I went with stripes in each quadrant. On the mech’s right shoulder and left leg the strips are vertical while on the other section I used horizontal stripes. I also worked to have that pattern continue down the arms as well. As usual with my minis I painted the base black for minimizing effect.
My second miniature again used quadrants, this time I did a sort of union jack and more horizontal stripes on the other sections. I also split the quadrants into front and back so if you look at either the front or back you’ll still see the union jack strip on the upper left and bottom right. After completing the main scheme I got playful and decided to paint in red some Norse runes on the mech in red. On the right arm, Sowilo meaning Honor / Victory, on the left arm Algiz meaning Defense / Shields, and on the chest Uruz meaning Power / Strength.

My final miniature is the classic checkered pattern all over the mech. I also took a little inspiration from the Davion paint scheme to run a solid blue stripe down the side of the mech’s body and down the leg as well. Overall this one feels the simplest to discuss but I’m also not 100% I got the checkers exactly correct. Still, I do like the simplicity of this one.”

Matt Ruley’s Instagram.

Major The Red

Lines / Hazard

“I had a few mechs preselected for this event depending on the rolls I would get. I was pretty happy to get something a bit silly (“Lines” for pattern and “Hazard” for color), so I went for a suitable silly mech, the Assassin, which is one of my favorites. I already knew at this stage black and yellow would be the main colors. After a quick search on the internet I found a mercenary unit, the Killer Bee, which sported, well, a bee pattern for parade. And then everything clicked about the narrative: someone salvaged a parade-pattern Killer Bee Assassin, fixed the damage, made a few swaps of weapons and went to become a mercenary himself. In reality I took the opportunity to change the LRM to an SRM-6 and the SRM-2 for 2 small lasers using greenstuff to make a more potent variant.

Paint wise, it was tricky because of the yellow. It took many-many layers to achieve some nice gradient, but ultimately it’s the final highlight that gives definition to the miniature. The black lines were treated to reflect light coming from the top. Finally, details like canopee, glow from laser and warning stripes below the jet packs were added for realism. I thought about adding battle damage but ultimately stopped before as I was afraid it would reduce the readability of the mech. There you go: a silly mech I won’t imagine many Houses deploying because of how useless he is, but that a crazy scavenger would use for odd jobs as a lone mercenary.”

JR Thornburg

Blocks / Jungle

“Not going to lie, this was absolutely fun. Rolled 4. Blocks / 3. Jungle Quick description on the painting. Prepped like normal for slap chop. Based with Citadel Mantis Warriors contrast, then lightly striped with a Pro Acryl Dark Golden Brown. Opting for relative large Digicam patter, I painted the shapes in Pro Acryl Bold Titanium White, then shade with either Army Painter Speed Paints Orc Skin, Gunner Camo, or Citadel Skeleton Horde. For more contrast a did another round of shapes inside the first set. Then simple gun metal and silver on weapons and actuators, as well as some slight dry brushing to simulate wear. As a homage to commando characters, I painted the cockpit glass with a ruby metallic and gloss. Final washes with Citadel Nuln Oil and Seraphim Sepia. Simple basing with Soilworks Autumn Ground, a small painted stream and a pair of Gamers Grass.

It was nice combining some techniques I’ve picked up from last years projects. Multi shaped camo is something I’ve done with a lance of Free Rasalhague Republic Hussars, though that was more rhombus and triangles. Using white paint to add on top of contrast paints was something I’ve discovered while painting a Jurassic Park themed company. Kinda hard to paint red stripes over neo-green otherwise. Had a blast and looking forward to doing this again.”

Joshua Budner

Spots / Desert

“I had the category “Desert-Spotted”. I feel that I dropped the ball on this one due to not keeping track of time. But with that said I wanted a faded and subtle look. I wanted to also give perspective on the scale of a battlemech compared to infantry and battle armour. With that said I am very happy to have taken part in this challenge. I do have a suggestion for next time; I would like to see camo schemes from the lore in the roulette with a twist. For example: KellHounds-battle damage or Comstar 7th Army-Jungle. Anyway, thank you for giving me the opportunity to participate and I’m looking forward to your next video on youtube.”

Adolfo Fernandez

Animal Print / Basic

“My name is Adolfo Fernandez and this is my paint roulette entry. The model is an Iron Wind Metals Mad Cat MKII E and my assignment was “animal” and “basic”. The base is an IWM standard hex base with the insert slot. I used epoxy putty and some model gravel as well as bits (head parts and weapons) from the robotech rpg miniatures, an assortment of veritech fighter head parts (Land Air Mech) and missile pods painted in a rusted and decrepit manner.

For the Mad Cat itself I went with a Tiger Camo pattern of the Clan Wolf Gamma Galaxy, but I chose not to use any decals to keep the scheme as clean as the animal itself. I’ve always loved this variant of the Mad Cat MK2, because the 5 is equipped with improved jump jets which gives it cat like agility yet retains its assault platform armor and weapons potential. This Cat is the Maddest of the cats, and to me it was either going to be a white tiger, a jaguar, or a red tiger pattern. As a result of going with a red tiger scheme I wanted to add some color differences, so made the ash and rubble a cool grey as well as made the canopy a slight cool violet but that increases in intensity to a hot pink then white point. The idea is that the Tiger is stalking and hunting his prey with his eyes glowing in a dim violet moonlight.

Overall, I am happy with my result and the tiger stripes came out how I wanted them more or less. As always big thanks to Chad Nabors for the invitation and also big shout out to everyone who is participating and those who applied. God Bless!

See more of my work at: https://www.instagram.com/thecollector927/
Discord channel: https://discord.gg/M9M7mtTd
“

Allan Abanilla

Animal Print / Urban

“This is my entry for the invitational. Paint Job: Animal Skin / Urban Unit: Thorn THE-N. The inspiration is a spotted grey hyena. Due to the Urban color scheme of the grays, whites, and black, I thought this animal would be perfect! I tried my best with the spotting though next time I may try to get a dotting tool, which is usually used for nails. Maybe I’ll get a couple of more Thorns to make the three Hyenas from Lion King. This was fun! I do wish I was able to get better pictures but I’ll improve once I find my lightbox. Thank you for hosting!”

Ben Wendt

Lines / Galactic

“I rolled “Lines” and “Galactic”, a combination which reminded me of old Soviet space posters. I immediately wanted to do a jumping mech, as the jump jets evoke a rocket taking off. I chose the Shadow Hawk as I preferred its less aggressive, more aspirational pose over other jumping mechs. I felt it fit the spirit of the posters better.

I used a dark blue accented strongly with a rich red-orange. I freehanded some red stars with shooting lines behind them. I also freehanded “Triumph” and “Glory” in Russian on the shoulder pads, words that appear frequently in the posters that inspired me. The jump jet smoke has a gradient from light blue to gray, and the flames are a yellow-white. By painting the yellow white into the recesses of the smoke cloud, it makes it seem like the fire continues into the smoke. I enjoyed the contest a ton, and I look forward to the next one!”

Ben Wendt is everywhere:
Blue Sky
Instagram
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Brody Beck

Worn-n-Weathered / Foundry

“So I had been toying with trying weathering for my pirate force I’m making for a campaign I’m going to run for my local group. I used this assignment as my dry run for that scheem and some pictures of damaged Hunchies I found doing a Google search. I think these turned out pretty good. The weathering was not as hard as I made it our to be. I made custome bases and added some battle damage to one arm. The base was some zip ties, a place mat amd some textured plastic sheeting that I modded. The bit sticking out the arm are some thin guitar string and the innards of telephone wire. The molding took more time that I though but I like the contrast and the pop of the leaking fluids.

This was my first time joining but it got me out of my comfort zone. I learned a new technique to use in the future. Thanks for the invite and I can’t wait for the next round.”

Matt Culgan

Stencilled / Basic

“I rolled STENCILLED & BASIC. Mech is named “Blaze Enforcer”, and is a dual use SAR/Assault Unit. Various shades of Orange throughout.
Bio: Battlefields were not only arenas of destruction but also graveyards for the wounded, trapped, and abandoned. Deployed in 3045, entire cities were reduced to rubble, trapping civilians and soldiers alike.Traditional SAR units were too vulnerable to operate in active combat zones, and assault mechs lacked the finesse for rescue operations. The “Blaze Enforcer” was designed to bridge this gap, a mech that could fight its way into hostile territory, secure an area, and extract survivors with precision.”

Watch Matt play games on YouTube.

Josh Neal

Dazzle / Woodland

“For the PRI 2025 – I rolled Woodland Dazzle. A curious scheme indeed, as none of the colors traditionally associated with woodland camouflage are super dazzle-ey – so I went with a lower contrast version! Why the bright red arm? That doesn’t sound woodlandey, or dazzley – because this King Crab is a part of Niall’s Ninth – a Mercenary Company! Niall’s Ninth – or N9 for short – always paints their machines in some form of camouflage, with a bright blood-red splash on the “dominant” arm of the mech/mechwarrior!”

Brushido

Junkyard / Urban

“The inspiration for this charger was junkyard scheme with urban colors. I kitbashed this Charger 1A5 I decided to paint it like it was cobbled together in a junkyard so I varied the grays of various parts so it would look like it was pieced together and worn. This was quite a departure for my usual clean style and came together quite quickly. Certainly a fun side project.”

Follow Brushido on Instagram.

Cole Walker

Worn-n-Weathered / Oceanic

“The Oceanic part of my submission had me stumped for the longest time , until I remembered a trip I took to Oregon a few years ago and remembered the light house and the black rock beach it sat over. Here is my submission “Silent Guardian” Thank you for the opportunity to throw my hat in the ring with a lot of fantastic artists, I had a ton of fun.”

See more of Cole’s work on Facebook.

Jon Nettleton

Camo / Jungle

“Hello, I would like to start by saying thank you so much for including me in the challenge. I had a blast working on this and I think it helped me push myself a little bit further than I would have without the challenge. It might not show in the pics but I can see the difference between where I was and where I am now. And it’s only been a month lol.

And now for my project. I was tasked with camo and jungle and used some inspiration from some movies I’ve seen and games I’ve played. I’ve never painted green camo before this project, and had never painted a background for any miniature, now I’ve done both. I think I did alright for first attempts but there are definitely things I can improve on. Again I appreciate the opportunity and hope to be included in future challenges. Thank you and have a great day.”

Jason Newman

Camo / Foundry

“Rolled ‘camo’ and ‘foundry’ this year. Camo was an interesting one because I’ve never actually painted camo before.

The tricky thing about camo is that it’s trying to do the exact opposite of what you are generally aiming for when painting a miniature. Camo wants to make shapes hard to pick out, confuse edges, and reduce definition. So painting ‘good’ camo usually results in a not so good miniature. The goal then was to try to do something either more stylized or subtle, I wanted to suggest camo without it being actually effective camo. I settled on a darker urban style camo of blues, blacks, and greys. It was definitely a challenge since, as I mentioned, I’ve never painted camo before. I did three passes of a medium cool grey, a near black, and a very bright cool grey over the dark blue base in small random blobs.

Keeping those random but relatively uniform in size is harder than you’d think but I was able to get things to where it all lined up well enough to proceed. That initial pattern was far too bright and contrasty to let go, it was actually doing what it was supposed to do and made it nearly impossible to sort out the visual noise. I fixed this by airbrushing thin glazes of a blue-back shade. This let me both build a little bit of a shadow in but also slowly knock the camo pattern down to a the more subtle level you see here. With some relatively strong edge highlights to help define edges and up the contrast I think I landed on a look at reads ‘camo’ but still lets you figure out what you’re looking at.

Foundry was music to my ears. I love doing NMM and this was as good of an opportunity as ever. I tried to keep the metals warm to contrast the cool armor panels as well as keep it a little more diffuse and dark so it didn’t read as extremely shiny chrome. I ended up going more reflective here and there (the left arm guns for example) but overall I managed to keep it a little more tame. I also tried to put in very warm brown secondary reflections to further up the contrast between the metals and the armor.

This whole thing was a lot of fun and I pushed myself to go faster than my usual glacial pace. It definitely came at the cost of quality, the blends could be smoother and the detail isn’t as sharp as it could be but for the amount of time into it I’m pleased with the results. All told I believe there are about twelve hours or so of painting here spread out over the course of a couple of weeks. Good times as always!”

See more of Jason’s amazing work on Flickr.

Joshua Bressel

Junkyard / Arctic

“This is a Corsair frankenmech of the New Belt Pirates. This ferocious beast, covered in snow, is in an arctic scrapyard, where the hapless pirate needed a barrel fire to keep warm. I used about 10 different mechs to build this guy. The legs and pelvis are from a Thug, waist and cockpit from a Blackjack, torso from a jumping Thunderbolt, with shoulder plates and SRM6 from that and a Thunderbolt 9NAIS. The left arm LL is from an Enforcer, right torso AC10 from a Centurion, right hand from a Dragon, cut and adjusted to be more open, RT LRM15 from a Summoner, and a chunk of right torso from the 25th Anniversary box plastic Hellbringer. There are additional bits and greebles sprinkled throughout.”

Chip Heusinger

Blocks / Arctic
“Thank you for the opportunity to be in this painting expose. My parameters were: Arctic and Blocks
My subject depicts a Linebacker of the 304th Assault Cluster, Clan Ghost Bear, assigned to the planet Celbalrai and is involved in the fighting against the Word of Blake units in the Northern Hemisphere.

I found the scheme a bit challenging at first because I originally was going to do the block pattern like a Tetris-type look but as I looked at the Linebacker, its armor patterns and general shape lead it to seem like there was a natural flow to the scheme. It took over and I genuinely liked how it turned out. Originally I was going to use a Kodiak or Grizzly but I liked the idea of it being a captured Clan Wolf mech.

I used mainly Army Painter and AK Colors, using blues, custom mixed greys, turquoise and Turbo Dork “Ice to Never” color changing paint for the glass.
I custom mixed a black wash and dry brushed white on it, finishing with Citadel Technical Valhallan Blizzard on the base along with some grass and rock. The snow on top is from Warlord Games Battlefields & Basing: Snow. Decals by Fighting Piranha Graphics.”

Daniel Corrigan

Blobs / Desert

“My rolls were blobs and desert. I chose a Battledroids Marauder to work on because it has a lot of clean surface area. Thanks for letting me participate in this fun project!”

Daniel is on Instagram.

Danielius Mockus

Spots / Oceanic

“The themes I drew were Oceanic and Spots, which immediately gave me idea of painting the miniature in a pattern of some Oceanic animal and in the end i decided it’ll be the whale shark (painting planes as sharks just fits, doesn’t it?)

There’s been quite a few ‘firsts’ for me in the process. First time trying to paint a free-hand pattern and not just doing paints-by-numbers, first time trying to do glow-effects on the lasers, first time doing my best to glaze a gradient onto the cockpit window, first time using water effects to create the ocean base. Just wanted to say thank you for organizing this, because it felt very good to actually finish something.”

Jeff Carlisle

Blocks / Hazard

“I give you Hazardous Squared. My challenge…square and hazard. Included in this post is my inspiration of a hazardous material truck. I was going to just put squares of color all over the mech. I was working on his right leg and it just felt like that much squares would be too much. Thus, some sporadic areas of “squaring.” Fun challenge! It always pushes me out of my comfort zone.”

John Millner

Dazzle / Oceanic

“I am still quite new to painting, only really picking up the brush and doing it regularly as of September last year. Just about that is. It’s because of this I signed up for the Invitational. I wanted to challenge myself and see what I can truly do with what little skill I have cultivated.

So when I got Oceanic+Dazzle as my results, I’ll be honest I was anxious, but just as excited. Immediately I knew how I should theme my ‘mech: Like that of a hulking underwater beast. So I snagged my Kraken and worked on colors. Muted blues and a red so that I could emulate the natural colorations of fish. Taking the patterning in a more “linear” and striped design, ensuring that each section faced a different direction and adding in the vibrant blue like that of the bioluminescence of similarly deep predators. For the exposed metal I took inspiration from a man-made action: Copper sheathing. Protecting what’s underneath from the salt of the ocean. It adds a nice bit of pop in my opinion without breaking theme.

All things considered, this was a wonderful learning experience.”

Josh Watrous

Blobs / Hazard

“I got assigned Blobs and Hazard. I’ve been doing a lot of dark and earthy tones for an alt-history wargame lately so figured I’d use this as a quick palette cleanser. This was a very liberal take on Hazard, as I took more inspiration from poison dart frogs than I did actual hazard symbology. Blobs was the easy part, I blobs well. Per the usual, it was a good opportunity to play with some colors outside my current range and take a breather from ongoing projects to do something silly.

Jack Taylor

Lines / Basic

“My assignment was basic and lines. Basic meant one color so the base color, highlights, and “white” stripes are all derived from the same color, just adding lighter shades of gray to achieve a lighter color. Otherwise it was metallics and the red for the forward AI sensor port. Models are for Grand Fleet Admiral, a 1/5000 scale game, and these models are the latest release for a solo game where these ships are an artificial intelligence faction. The way this game is played, these photos consist of three units.

First picture is all the battlegroups. Second picture is the battlecruiser group, 3 battlecruisers with 3 frigates. Third picture is a destroyer group. Fourth and fifth picture is the battleship group. Sixth picture is rear shot of the battlecruiser battlegroup. Seventh picture is a side view shot of the destroyer group.”

Jesse Crisanti

Dazzle / Two-tone

“”Burial” Struggled with this one initially. Thankfully a friend sent me a Highlander 3D print and I had some extra bits laying around. When it came to the dazzler concept I thought initially I would do something painted dazzled dodging incoming fire. But then I thought “what if the pilot thought he was safe with that camo and totally wasn’t? Hubris makes for a good story.”

So then the decision had to be made of what mech I was willing to destroy, and obviously I chose a dragon because no one cares about dragons. The Highlander seemed like the obvious choice for the job. The dazzle pattern is tricky enough as it is, but then I realized I had accidentally picked a mech that has many con curves to it without realizing it. Makes lines very tricky, as most traditional dazzle paint jobs have very straight lines and sudden cutoffs. I would have been more pleased if I could have taped it off but it’s a little small for that. The two-tone dragon could not stand up to the might of the three-tone Highlander. Highlander got Vietnam tiger stripe because why not?

Cockpit penetration was made via a metal spike placed in the fire and pushed through the cockpit. Btw, toothbrush bristles for antennas works great. Flexible.”

Find more JC Craftmage on YouTube

Dylan Farrington

Camo / Lore

“Went with a Clan Goliath Scorpion Delta Galaxy Highlander IIC. It’s camo if you’re in the lava fields! I had a lot of fun with this guy. It’s an homage to a piece that really inspired me as I first got into the painting side of Battletech. Shout out to the original artist Cyttorak.

Lots of practice blending yellows and oranges. I don’t think I fully accomplished what I set out to do in terms of blends and final presentation. I started with a white primer into yellow thinking it would be faster to apply the darker shades over the higher I go. Due to the amount of time needed I think going the opposite – black down into the light shades would have been the better approach to having a cohesive and easy to manage steps. However, I count this as a hugely successful Roulette for three reasons: I had my personal skills tested, I had to approach this in a novel way, and it highlighted that I look forward to practicing.

Last year I was super bummed my last move got in the way of finishing, and I am excited to have taken part this year. As an added note: the backgrounds made with the Canva background generation. It also has a super useful BG removal tool too.”

Grouchy Lenny

Camo / Hazard

“Here’s my entry for Camo Hazard. Thanks for running this contest it was just the motivation I needed to get painting again! I don’t have the chops so many of the other entrants do but I have been inspired by their work and the camaraderie in the Discord group! Have a great day!”

Jeffrey Brasier

Spots / Foundry

My inspiration for this was a P-51 Mustang and the clean polished aluminum look. For the circles I used a pool 8-ball on the cockpit canopy while highlighting some of the natural circles on the Bushwhacker. I used a paint that is widely used for the P-51 Mustang models for the base coat, but it does not hold well to handling. I covered the base coat with clear gloss to protect it. I found that the acrylics had a very difficult time adhering to the enamel and kept coming off while I was working on other parts of the mech. As a result, I had to stop a little earlier on my detail work than I wanted to protect what I had already completed.

I created a water base for the first time and feel like it turned out well. I hope the pictures capture that. It looks like a stream passing below the mech. I feel like I learned more don’ts doing this project, but I tried to play around with things I wouldn’t have normally done. I entered the PRI to challenge myself and feel like that is exactly what I did. Thank you so much for running the PRI. It was amazing to see the things everyone else was working on. I hope you continue this in the future.”

Yakudami

Lines / Lore

“For my PRI assignment “LINES – LORE” I prepared this pre-Star League Mackie in Nueva Castille’s Castillan Brigada paint scheme. I first came across this particular paint scheme while browsing camospecs online, and it really stuck with me. This assignment felt like the perfect push to actually paint it.

It was a great opportunity to try out some new colors, paints, and techniques. Doing the freehand lines was actually much easier and quicker than I thought it would be. That’s also the first time for me painting battletech mech in subassemblies. While I wouldn’t say everything came out absolutely perfect, I am still quite satisfied with the final results. I somewhat got carried away and the whole Castillan Brigada lance to accompany my Mackie is already in the making

Thank you for organizing this wonderful opportunity that brings together so many talented artists. I hope to participate again in the future!”

Check out Yakudami on Instagram.

Chad Nabors

Stencilled / Oceanic

“I painted this Steel Rift Scarab up in beachy tones partially inspired by a gorgeous, teal vintage Bronco I’ve seen rolling around town. The teal bodywork has subtle light to dark variations along the limbs and torso. A magenta canopy with bright white frame sets off the scheme wonderfully. Homemade pastel powder I whipped up the beach chair from acrylic card and staples. The beach is closed until further notice!”

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Our Sponsors

Alumni, welcome back. For you new people the Paint Roulette Invitational is not so much a contest as it is an event, a challenge. No judges, just for fun and experimentation, hanging out on Discord or Facebook alongside other hobby heroes who are participating. In the event, you’ll get a random theme and a random palette to interpret however you want on the model of your choice.

Get it done on time, submit it, and get entered for a raffle prize provided by our sponsors. That’s it! We’ve got lots of great stuff coming, including BattleTech forcepacks and salvage boxes from Fortress, and a ton of spectacular metal infantry from Darkest Star. Note the raffle will be done publicly on a random picker app after the event is a wrap, and I am not eligible for any of the prizes. 

Sign Up Here!

If you want in, sign up today at this link: https://forms.gle/3UZBDuXtgSd7f1AU6

There is no fee to enter! I’ll email you back with links to the Discord and/or Facebook groups in the coming days afterward. Signups are open for the next 10 days from the time this post goes live, and I reserve the right to close them early if there is a torrent of people. The event will run for 30 days after the sign-ups close, plenty of time to finish one mini even at a leisurely pace. Participants and would-be participants, ask any questions in the comments section of the YouTube video or email me directly via the address at the bottom of the blog’s About page.

Rules and Guidelines

Below is everything you need to know about the proceedings:

1. Models. Chosen models are to be microscale and sci-fi themed. 10mm or smaller ideally, 12mm at the absolute max. Use any commercial, kitbashed or scratch-built mini you want. BattleTech or BT-compatible minis are traditional for the PRI, but you can use anything you want as long as it’s sci-fi themed. Mechs, robots, tanks, planes, ships, boats, infantry, whatever. Please don’t use a Lego man, or something made from cigarette butts or toenail clippings. Standards, people!

2. Finish it. Painted, based and basing done to whatever your personal standard is (base and basing optional for models that stand or sit flat on their own). Go as simple or as intricate as you want. Decals and additional markings are totally at your discretion, and such minority elements don’t need to conform to your theme or palette.

3. Theme and colorway criteria. There is broad latitude for your interpretation of your assigned theme and colorway. This is intentional. Example: Blocks could be big and chunky ala Berlin Brigade camo, or smaller digital pixels if you are a complete lunatic. Or something else entirely! See the notes by each on the assignment lists below for more insights.

4. Assignments. I will roll for each participant and let you know what your results are. You do not pick your own. There are no do-overs because an assignment seems hard or contradictory. That’s part of the fun! Roll with it, and ask fellow participants for inspiration. Assignments will be posted with your name in either Discord or Facebook once you get into the groups. If you do not participate on either platform, I will email them to you. 

5. Alumni re-rolls. In the interest of variety, if PRI alumni roll either of your results from the previous round, you can reroll one or both results if desired. The second assignment will stand.

6. Submissions. Once you are done, you must take 3 to 5 nice photos of your finished piece and email them to me. That will earn entry into the raffle drawing. Submission email will be provided to participants later.

7. Use of participant photos. I reserve the right to share photos of participants’ completed works here on my YouTube channel and elsewhere on the internet or in print to promote future events. I am happy to share any relevant socials or other contact info of participants in kind. See the relevant spot on the signup form to provide links to your socials if desired.

8. Sharing projects. Wherever you share your projects on social media, do me a big favor and please link to the channel and tag or mention “Paint Roulette Invitational” or “PRI”. Not mandatory, but I really appreciate it and it will help grow the event going forward. Note to alumni, there is no social media embargo regarding the deadline; share WIP or complete work at your leisure, go crazy!  

9. Interactions. Participation does not mandate interaction with other participants on social media platforms. If you do participate, mind your manners and keep all interactions focused on the event and projects at hand. Behave as if you were an invited guest in my home among other guests. Be constructive and supportive. Offer critiques of others’ works only if explicitly asked for. Take any off-topic inquiries to DMs or elsewhere. Groups will be monitored.

10. Coordinator veto. I will unilaterally disqualify any project or eject any participant that I consider inflammatory, subversive or disruptive, be it done deliberately or otherwise. Things that I consider patently inflammatory include but are not limited to real-world political or ideological statements during what should be a fun and pleasant event. It’s my island.

And that’s all you need to know. Head to that signup link if you haven’t already, or email directly with questions. I hope you all sign up, and I am looking forward to spending some time at the hobby bench with you!

Round 4 Themes and Colorways

Theme

Rolling on 1D12

1. Spots – Circles, dots, spheres, etc.

2. Fade – One or more colors shifting to others.

3. Blobs – Irregular blobs and patches of color.

4. Blocks – Squares, rectangles, cubes, etc.

5. Lines – Just what it says. One or more lines, parallel or not.

6. Camo – Just what it says. Pick or make a pattern and use your colors.

7. Dazzle – Eye-melting explorations of an evolutionary cul-de-sac in camo theory. I’m praying for you.

8. Animal Print – Wildlife-inspired patterns. Mammals, fish, birds, insects, reptiles, etc. 

9. Worn and Weathered – Beat and batter your model good and hard. Rust, grime, wear, streaking, scrapes, mud, burns, damage, etc.

10. Stencilled – Checkers, quadrants, tessellations, tri-color, bi-color and other liveries or distinct graphical embellishments.

11. Inked – Flames, bones, thorns, tribal motifs, and any other sort of pattern or iconography you’d expect to see on a reasonably tasteful if ill-advised tattoo.

12. Junkyard – Paint the majority of your model in the assigned colorway. Pick a few parts and paint them differently. Rusty, bare metal, different colors, etc.  

Colorway

Rolling on 1D12

1. Desert – Any colors suitable for use in desert environments.

2. Woodland – M81 and OD enjoyers rejoice.

3. Jungle – Emerald greens and other conceivably tropical tones

4. Urban – Grays, black, dusty brown, white, etc. 

5. Arctic – Frigid white, pale gray, frosty blue, anything that says “cold.”

6. Basic – Pick a color. Use only shades and tints of it.

7. Lore – Pick a major or minor faction of your choice, one belonging to the lore of your model’s game system or universe, IP and use those colors.

8. Two-Tone – Pick two complimentary colors. Use those.

9. Foundry – Chrome, steel, iron, bronze, brass, verdigris, aluminum. Molten slag. Anything that says “metal”.

10. Hazard – Think heavy equipment manufacturers. Vivid, contrasting oranges, yellows, greens, reds, etc. Tones that will say “danger” in every language.

11. Oceanic – Bright, clear beachy tones, or dark and unsettling shades from the briny deep. Blues, greens, white foam, tans, yellow, etc.

12. Galactic – A cosmic palette of black, deep blues, purples, silver, gold, etc. Or anything else that evokes the vastness and mystery of space.

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Benjamin Wendt

Orion ON1-K
Assignment: House, Arctic

Jason Newman

Supernova
Assignment: Inked, Basic

“My two parameters were ‘inked’ and ‘basic’. The first was described as tattoo-like patterns, flames, skulls, and that sort of thing. The second was interesting in that it called for me to use a single color to drive everything, using shades and tints of the core only. I chose to interpret that as ‘colored areas on the mech’ instead of every single part of the model and base as I felt that would lead to a pretty uninteresting paint job. Maybe someone better than me can take up that challenge, but I choose to go with ‘armor only’ as to where to approach it.

Everything in the main red of the model is based around Kimera The Red. I hadn’t had a ton of a chance to use my Kimera paints and a one off fun project like this is a perfect chance to give them a test drive. The color made the second choice easy, if you’re going to paint something bright red then flames are the answer. I was able to push it to very dark, desaturated burgundy colors for the lining and shades to bright oranges for the tips of the flames but the base color is present in all of it. After everything was down I also glazed over everything with that base red again to pull it all together even further and keep that strong red running through everything. The lining and edges are shaded and highlighted pretty strongly on this, everything being variants of the same hue means I had to lean into value contrast way more. It gives everything a little more cartoony look I think, but it all fits with what is apparently my style for painting Battletech stuff.

The metallic bits and bases were all colors chosen to put a lot of contrast in the piece to make up for the lack of color contrast on the main red. The bright green crystal and violet ground are triadic to the main red and the greenish blue of the metal is a direct complement. All that is just a longwinded way of saying I tried to paint it to have more visual impact to make up for the challenge. Hopefully it worked out.”

Jeff Carlisle

Cataphract CTF-3D
Assignment: Worn-n-Weathered, Two-Tone

“My task was to create a two-tone wornout mech. I put more emphasis on the wornout side of the assignment.”

Kevin Dub

Double Feature! Supernova and Marauder IIC
Assignment: Blobs, Patriotic

“Working red, white, and blue into camo without it looking like fashion from Wal-mart was certainly a challenge.

Ever the subtle hunter, the Nova Cats paint their machines in appropriate camouflage. These warriors of Sigma Galaxy painted their machines in mottled red, white and blue camo to match the arid Martian environment of the crystal fields of Patriocys. The crystals were the subjects of many trials as they proved a valued resource.

Old Glory’s colors definitely proved a challenge to make into a convincing camo. I initially started with the Marauder and hand painted white and blue blob camo over a red base. It looked quite busy, so I gave it a second try with a blue to white fade over red, done with masking putty and the airbrush.”

Josh Watrous

Warthog
Assignment: Animal Print, Woodland

“This mech is part of my group’s alternate history for BT, specifically us deciding to do some more expansion on the Homeworld Clans post-Reaving. Though the model is an Osteon, the mech is known to Clan Havoc Hog as a “Warthog”, a total conversion of the Osteon from expensive wunderwaffe weapon, into a fairly sturdy and inexpensive garrison unit. The paint scheme is derived from one of the Wolf keshiks, presumably due to an early member of Havoc Hog being a captured member of the keshik. Paint roll was animal print and woodland!”

Adolfo Fernandez

Warhawk
Assignment: Camo, Urban

“This is my entry for June’s Paint Roulette. I rolled Urban and Camouflage, and so I went with a very subtle military style grey and dark grey 2 tone urban spike camo pattern on an Alpha Strike Masakari along with some 3D printed highway dividers and a Khurasan minis pewter 6mm car, but due to the nature of urban camo being dull and matt to better blend in with buildings and rubble I did an airbrush zenithal using some of the neutral grays from ProAcryl, I decided to focus primarily on the parts that would have the most color.

The Barrels and heat treatment for both the plasma cannons on the right arm and the PPC’s on the left give off a different glow and heat signature, for these I used various products from Citadel to Vallejo Metal Colors. For the Canopy I did roughly a 6-color transition for the red jeweling and 3 color transition for the green part of the jeweling, for these I used Duncan’s 2 thin coats paints for their thinning ability to get to an extremely thinned down filter and still have enough pigment for beautiful fades and color transitions.

For the metallic applications on the mech’s mechanical parts I went with the new ProAcryl Adepticon Magnesium and mixed some Army Painter Fanatics Plate Mail Metal for highlights. For the road and environmental apps I used scale 75 graphite and some Citadel washes and some ProAcryl Coal Black for the road itself and some 2 Thin Coats yellow and AK 3rd Gen White for the stripes on the road. For the car mini I went with a combination of Army Painter Fanatics Greedy Gold and Weapon Bronze along with some Vallejo Metal Color Gold for highlights, and for the windows I used a similar technique as with the mech’s canopy but I added some scratches to simulate the impacts of the mech causing the car windows to crack from the sheer shock of mech scale weapon booms and stomps, but the glass still holds.

I also added some Warpaint Fanatics Power Node Glow for the pinks to add vibrancy, and Data System glow for the green part. I think overall the car has the most glass detail than the mech does but I wanted it to be a visual point of interest to contrast with the militaristic urban camo vibe of the mech. It took me about 3 days of solid work to pump this out as I had many responsibilities, and this is the fastest competitive piece i’ve painted for those interested in more information about the process.

Thank you for reading if you found this informative and special Thanks to Chad Nabors for another fun challenge and Paint Roulette. Hope to be a part of the next one soon.”

Jesse Crisanti

Diorama, “Big Trouble in Little Chinatown”
Assignment: Lines, Hazard

“A Draconis Combine Sword of Light regiment encountering Clan Smoke Jaguar circa early Clan invasion. My theme was stripes and hazards. My Plan A failed when I couldn’t find the file I needed and this sort of fell into place. Fun fact, both mechs, the base, and many of the elementals are blemished/ failed prints. Since I suspect there might be a couple questions, I’ll just try to answer a few of them ahead of time.

The lasers are just wire painted with primer, white ink, and speed paints. Everything is 3D printed except lasers. The base is scaled up to 3 inches and is a free file you can find on cults (as you guys probably already know). The mechs are standard size. The Orion and the Axman are also free files you can find on most sites. The name of the artists who created them currently escape me. The AxMan file that you can find is actually different from this one. There’s one that is all one piece and another download that has the pieces broken down so you can articulate it a little bit like I’ve done here. The elementals are made by Locust Labs which I received recently through their Patreon.”

Josh Neal

Exterminator EXT-4D
Assignment: Fade, Jungle

“‘Star Commander Jonas held his breath, fully aware that any noise he made inside the cockpit of his Exterminator would not alert anyone outside of his mech. He had been slinking around for days hunting some problematic member of the dark caste who’s name he could not even remember. Days of sleeping, or not sleeping more accurately, in the cockpit would do that to you. But here he was, in the moment of truth: his target had rolled out in a clearing right in front of him.

It was a handful of vehicles, all carrying small arms of sorts that had been used to terrorize some of the Wolf labor and science caste members, and Jonas was here to put an end to it. He waited just another moment, to ensure that the terrorists were out of their vehicles, before he punched the throttle, and killed his Chameleon Light Polarization shield on his ‘Mech. The last thing that any of the insurgents saw was his Exterminator, fading from invisibility into view, and the flash of it’s lasers.’

Aaaaand I am calling it! Not exactly how I hoped it would turn out, but also better than I expected! My theme was “fade” and “jungle,” so I decided that meant the Chameleon system was helping it fade into (or out of?) a jungle!”

Jack Taylor

Assignment: Blobs, Desert

“Not much to add, desert blobs screamed chocolate chip camo and it is a camo type I’ve never attempted. Thought it was fun and easy to make look good. Some of the pictures it has a yellow look, but no yellows were used, just khakis and browns.”

Daniel Corrigan

Mobile HQ Vehicle
Assignment: Dazzle, Foundry

“Thanks again for letting me be part of this fun exercise! My draws were Dazzle and Foundry. I tried something completely different for this fig and did drawings and made plans. After many stops, stops and reversals those plans went out the window and were replaced by my usual seat of your pants process, ending up with a result quite different from my original plan.

I appreciate the opportunity to think outside my box and find it pretty amusing that this paint job fits so nicely into it. Cheers!”

Jonathan Shore

Nightstar NSR-9J
Assignment: Blocks, Galactic

“I wanted the Nightstar to live up to its name. I imagined it as a large predator, hunting down anything and everything. With a carapace that harkens to its name, and block patterns on the legs to break up its outline. A killer whose grin means death.”

Chad Nabors

Boa Protomech
Assignment: Stencilled, Foundry

“Shiny. And chrome. Lots of gray, dark wash and pigment powder on the base. This ended up pretty far away from my initial idea of an all-over transparent candy coat over a metal basecoat. But I’m happy with the aesthetic in the end.

Metallics used extensively over save the panel lining, sensor domes, butt pad and forearm on the laser rifle. Paints are a combo of Vallejo Model Color, Vallejo Mecha, Vallejo Shifters, and Army Painter Fanatic. I subtly highlighted the upper surfaces with increasing amounts of silver and aluminum for more pop from ambient light. Colorshift paints on the lenses and canopy, but the latter is so recessed in the head it is in hard shadow all the time.

A fun piece I’ll use as a leadership element protomech in BT, or for its intended purpose as an ultralight HE-V in Steel Rift.”

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This time around we had more painters, more options and some incredible raffle prize support for all participants courtesy of Fortress Miniatures and Games. Just for fun: no judges’ panel, no scoreboards, no bull. Just a bunch of hobby heroes doing something different and pushing their personal limits. And everyone got a little loot to seal the deal!

You know what they say: enough pressure can turn a lump of coal into a diamond, a normal person into an unhinged maniac, and a tough PRI assignment into a masterpiece. Fun was had by all, even if an unlucky few, including your dear writer here, were sentenced to some truly challenging paintjobs.

I think this little shindig has legs. I really do. It has the makings of a proper event. It is small for now, but one day it might be the sci-fi mini-painting extravaganza from which there is no escape. In the meantime, check out the charts and the results below along with some insights from each of the participants. We once again had some amazing, one-of-a-kind BattleTech pieces churned out.

Theme
Rolling on 1D12

1. Spots – Circles, dots, spheres, etc.
2. Fade – One or more colors shifting to others.
3. Blobs – Irregular blobs and patches of color.
4. Blocks – Squares, rectangles, cubes, etc.
5. Lines – Just what it says. One or more lines, parallel or not.
6. Camo – Just what it says. Pick or make a pattern and use your colors.
7. Dazzle – Eye-melting explorations of an evolutionary cul-de-sac in camo theory. I’m praying for you.
8. Animal Print – Wildlife-inspired patterns. Mammals, fish, birds, insects, reptiles, etc.
9. Worn and Weathered – Beat and batter your model like it just shortchanged a Diamond Shark. Rust, grime, wear, streaking, scrapes, mud, etc.
10. Stencilled – Checkers, quadrants, tessellations, tri-color, bi-color or other liveries or distinct graphical embellishments.
11. Inked – Flames, bones, thorns, and other sort of pattern or iconography you’d expect to see on a reasonably tasteful if ill-advised tattoo.
12. House – Pick a Major or Minor House unit scheme of your choice, or some other faction or outfit that you can work with your colorway result.

Colorway
Rolling on 1D12

1. Desert – Any colors suitable for use in desert environments.
2. Woodland – M81 and OD enjoyers rejoice.
3. Jungle – Emerald greens and other conceivably tropical tones
4. Urban – Grays, black, dusty brown, white, etc. Or go monochrome.
5. Arctic – Frigid white, pale gray, frosty blue, anything that says “cold.”
6. Basic – Pick a color. Use only shades and tints of it.
7. Patriotic – Colors chosen from a national flag, or the stereotypical colors of your favorite House or other faction.
8. Two-Tone – Pick two complimentary colors. Use those.
9. Foundry – Chrome, steel, iron, bronze, brass, verdigris, aluminum. Anything that says “metal”.
10. Hazard – Think heavy equipment manufacturers. Vivid, contrasting oranges, yellows, greens, reds, etc. Tones that will say “danger” in every language.
11. Oceanic – Bright, clear beachy tones, or dark and unsettling shades from the briny deep. Blues, greens, white foam, tans, yellow, etc.
12. Galactic – A cosmic palette of black, deep blues, purples, silver, gold, etc. Or anything else that evokes the vastness and mystery of space.

Oleg (Yellow With Hobby)

Crab CRB-??
Assignment: Worn and Weathered, Basic

“…13 years ago, after the dunes strode yet again, Camilla found this ‘mech stuck prone with its limbs deep in the sand. At first she only saw its humped torso and an oddly shaped “B” painted on it. That is probably why she called it “Bug”. She was only 16 back then.
The machine laid about 2 miles away from the scrapyard, where she helped her father repair what was left of agricultural equipment in the village. Camilla used to take every free hour to visit her Bug and eventually started trying to restore it…”

Both parts of my task came as a challenge to me: I am not very experienced in heavy weathering and also one colour restriction promised complications. I decided to partially achieve the weathered look through modelling battle damage and improvised repairs. To satisfy the one tone condition I chose browns and bent their definition from red browns to light sand, ahem, browns. It gave me shades, highlights and weathering, and my black is a bit brown too.
I tried to imagine the reason for the mech to be oddly modified in sandy conditions and came up with this little story which served as a guide for the work. The color scheme of Goliath Scorpion Beta Galaxy felt perfect (except for the clan insignia which I redesigned). With these big pieces in place it was just a matter of putting time and effort into completing the piece.

Huge thanks to Chad and all the painters for support, advice and fun challenge! With all the thought, research and work it inspired me for, I feel I became a better painter over this month!”

Rob Jensen

Assassin ASN-23
Assignment: Lines, Two-Tone

“I feel its fair to say my ambition exceeds my ability to paint consistent, smooth, freehand lines.

That having been said, the design parameters rolled for me were “two color” and “lines”, so though I could’ve dodged a bullet, my fate was always to be shot.

Yes, I’m sure there are ways I could’ve made this project easier on myself, but a paint scheme popped into my head almost immediately, something that would be at home in the Battletech: Beyond Electrodrome gladiatorial setting that I’ve been working like an old dog works an old bone.

So I was stuck with executing this monstrosity. Measure twice, cut once. I tested the scheme on a Trebuchet to get a feel for how to implement things. Poor bastard never saw it comin’.

But hey, you don’t gain and build new skills without taking some risks. You must be willing to make mistakes. In all things, but especially when painting tiny war machines.

Am I critical of my own work? Yes. It’s always been that way. For all of us. Thats human nature.

But balancing those scales is simple: I enjoyed the hell out of this friendly competition. I enjoyed watching my brain give birth to this insane color scheme and then figure out how to make it so. I enjoyed the learning process, my first attempt at precise freehand lines, the butchery and beauty, seeing how much I improved from Trebuchet to Assassin. And I have a Firestarter and a Thunderbolt lined up next to continue the process, to keep my brush in the paint, as it were.

Many thanks, amigos. I had a ball.”

Jason Newman

Jagermech JM6-S
Assignment: Stencilled, Patriotic

“Mercenary Jagermech ‘Landsknecht’

I pulled ‘patriotic’ and ‘stenciled’ where the stencil could be stripes, checkers, and the like. That sounds like heraldry to me and my mind went immediately to transfers. I’ve got a lot of transfers already that fit the bill, I do a lot of 40k and primarily Imperial Knights so I was flush. I decided on a blend of a more standard militaristic look with some accents that would call back to the knight idea.

Working backwards from there I tried to think of something that fit the ‘patriotic’ bill. I didn’t want to do an established Battletech faction, mostly because I never do an established Battletech faction so real world it is. If I was going to do it in the style of a European knight there was always the low hanging fruit of a Templar or something like that but I didn’t find that particularly interesting. So what else could I do? Well a Jagermech sure sounds awfully German, that could work!

What I would do for the base was pretty easy. Thinking about modern German armor immediately calls a snappy grey scheme to mind but that is pretty tasteless so I settled on a more neutral green. For the fancy bits I decided to go with the landsknecht, 16th century German mercenaries that often work brightly colored and patterned tunics and trousers under their armor along with flamboyant feathers on their helmets.

So I’ve got a mercenary who thinks he can trace his roots to German descent, a long line of military culture. He flies the old Terran German flag and has his mech painted in a style that evokes the same wild uniforms of the landsknecht mercenaries of old.”

Arclight Miniatures Zack

Shadow Cat
Assignment: Camo, Woodland

“I quite enjoy the challenge of painting a miniature that is in a style/scheme that I haven’t picked. I feel I got a paint scheme roll that suited me perfectly as camo is something I’m familiar with. Because of this, I decided to do camo in a style that I had not yet done: tiger stripe woodland. I found this a tedious, but very pleasing camo style to paint, and I have been inspired to do a larger force in a similar scheme, go figure! I’m very happy to see Chad continuing the Paint Roulette Challenge and look forward to participating in the next one!”

Daniel Corrigan

Hoplite HOP-4D
Assignment: Blobs, Galactic

“My rolls were “Galactic” and “Blobs”. My fig is a Ral Partha 20-803 HOP-4C cut from a blue card blister. Always a joy to work on actual lead. The artwork on the top of the model was done using just an eye dropper and a toothbrush. Many thanks to Chad Nabors for organizing this fun event and for letting me play along. Cheers!!!”

Adolfo Fernandez

King Crab KGC-000
Assignment: Camo, Two-Tone

“Hello everybody, I am The Collector and I’d like to talk about my entry the “King Crab mini diorama”. It begins with another Paint Roulette invitation and some dice rolls. This time around I got a pretty simple set of requirements that didn’t involve painting tiny trees on mechs. Nevertheless, I wanted to push the limits of my abilities as I knew I’d be going up against some of the greatest mech painters in the hobby, including a couple Camo Specs artists. The excitement and anxiety were in high gear as I felt the rush of wanting to prove myself and do the best work possible.

First were my color choices, as my first set of requirements was that the mech needed to be 2 toned. I went with a white and green color choice, and I wanted to make the white and green look muted and worn as if it were the camouflage colors on an alpine pattern WW2 tank. The second requirement was that it needed to be a camouflage pattern so that made things simple. But just painting a mech a 2-tone camo pattern felt like it would be dull, and I could be done with it in less than an hour. So, after brainstorming with the guys in the chat, and after some digging through my parts bin, I decided to add infantry, terrain features, a little bit of a story for the mech and infantry, and I knew I wanted to spice it up with some dead bodies. Why dead bodies? Why not dead bodies. One squishy body where the King Crab purposely stepped on an enemy soldier revealing only his legs, and another body laid out on a fallen fence due to multiple gunshots from some support infantry hiding just behind the barricade and standing fence.

I had my color scheme and story ready, but next was the actual execution. The most difficult part for me was the OSL on the large laser on top. I had tried to use my airbrush, but I ended up over spraying and I had to retouch the OSL by hand with a size 1 and size 0 kolinsky brush. The brands I used for the model range from Army Painter, Pro Acryl, Scale 75, Citadel, and Vallejo. I used various washes and tones and techniques to achieve some of the effects such as oil barrel spill, blood, chipped paint, heat and metal charring, and of course the OSL. I got to a point on the model where I felt there was a little too much, so I muted things down with some nuln oil and careful touchups with glazes to bring the background tones closer to the mech using some light blues and dark blue glazes.

Overall, I am happy with the mech, however I didn’t notice some of the model’s defects on the right side of the cockpit glass. It was slightly melted and warped so I just painted around it. I hope it’s not too noticeable. I also didn’t quite like how rough some of the airbrushing went on. I have a pretty dusty painting area and I should have kept things cleaner to avoid the granular and dusty bits from getting sprayed on with the primers and paints. I learned a lot about where I am regarding my painting skill, and seeing the competition gave me even greater admiration and respect for the clean and flat panels and surfaces as well as blending and details from artists like Kevin and Zack.

I’ve got to thank Chad for inviting me again to paint and to give me the opportunity to challenge myself so shout out to him and everyone else involved in the Painting Roulette Invitational. Thank you for taking the time to read my blurb.”

Kevin Dub

Mad Cat
Assignment: House, Desert

“A Synthwave tribute to the cover of TRO 3050.”

Jonathan Shore

Ebon Jaguar
Assignment: Animal Print, Hazard

“I thought of the Ebon Jaguar for the theme of Animal print/hazard. The Jaguar just has this loping hunter look to it as if it was stalking in search of prey. I tried to go in the direction of a great cat gliding silently over the plains as it closes on it’s intended victim, blue sky glittering overhead. Hardened orange ferro skin on the outside, tender fur on it’s unprotected undercarriage. With a barrel, burnt in and well used in the hunt.”

Jeff Carlisle

Javelin JVN-10N
Assignment: Fade, Jungle

“I used 4 colors and tried to blend them from top to bottom. I used some verge from the garden for basing:)

I used gloss finish on the high points hoping for a rain effect. Didn’t give the desired look.”

Jack Taylor

Warhawk
Assignment: Spots, Oceanic

“This Warhawk is painted to match the theme of “aquatic, circles.” My ambition was to paint water with the effect of bubbles rising. My vision was beyond my ability, but I hoped to capture the essence of an aquatic paint scheme with some circles to add visual interest.

The mech is painted in colors adhering to the CamoSpecs entry for Clan Hell’s Horses Iota Galaxy

The official Iota Galaxy color scheme is solid black, without trim or highlighting. However, many Iota warriors have taken to painting their equipment in several outrageous colors. (https://camospecs.com/unit/iota-galaxy-2/)

Iota Galaxy has long been Hell’s Horses dumping ground for old warriors, and I wanted to paint a mech befitting a seasoned veteran, ready for retirement, but with maybe one last score to settle or the kids are getting a little too close on their jet skis.

Base colors were airbrushed, highlights were achieved with mixing the base color to an equal part white. Decals are from Fighting Piranha Graphics, sand and water from Vallejo (Mediterranean Blue).”

Joshua Bressel

Kestrel VTOL
Assignment: Animal Print, Two-Tone.

“Davion MI6 Rabid Foxes Special Forces, deploying from a Kestrel VTOL. Kestrel VTOL is 3d printed with etched rotor disc by Death Ray Designs and Infantry are Khurasan Warforce Reserves Infantry.”

Chad Nabors

Stalker STK-3F
Assignment: Dazzle, Jungle

“In the PRI, no result is as feared as Dazzle. Aside from being a bonkers “camo” pattern generally, it is also excruciating to paint to a reasonable standard. All precise linework and painstaking highlighting to make it look decent.

Truth be told, I had a hankering for a dazzle-painted mech for some time now, if only to see if I could execute it. In a way, my initially demoralizing assignment was serendipitous. But the constraint of a “jungle” paint palette gave it some unexpected pizazz, and I think turned the pattern into a stylish if plausible one. Dark green stripes on the upper body and legs, and dark brown on the bottom: Perfect for blending in among the vines and branches of a continent spanning emerald inferno.

This Stalker is modded with flipped arms. It looks better and I will die on that hill. On the base, Tracker Dan atop his trusty steed, ready to ferret out any ambushing infantry or fleeing pilots. They’ll be lucky if dehydration claims them.”

The post Paint Roulette Invitational, Round 2 appeared first on TheChadNabors.com.

I am talking about paint roulette: randomly assigned pattern, randomly assigned colors, with each category ranging from “wild” to “mild.” Nothing like getting constrained to an arbitrary set of standards to get the noggin’ joggin’.

But before I go on, credit where credit is due: I lifted this idea whole cloth from the back of the book for TONKS! by Apocrypha Now. The game looks like a blast and I love the combination of customization, kitbashing and gutsy but simple armored combat. It is definitely a vibe! So go check it out, it is free!

But down to business. With rising excitement at the idea the stage was now set for some entertaining and revitalizing paint bench antics: THE PAINT ROULETTE INVITATIONAL! So I invited, pleaded and extorted to assemble a lineup of my very favorite hobby heroes from various BT-centric Facebook groups as participants. They were all surprisingly willing, to my eternal gratitude.

And what happened surpassed my high hopes for the endeavor: Enthusiasm was infectious. Contestants set to work at once. The group chat was full of WIP shots, discussions, nonsense, banter and encouragement 24/7 for weeks on end. It was a roller coaster, and fun out of all proportion with such a simple idea. I am beyond grateful that all of these guys humored me, and I am thrilled to be able to show off their work. In truth, I’m not fit to carry their brushes but your humble author also participated.

For your reference, the lists I used for the randomly rolled paint plans and palettes are just below, exactly as I presented them to the entrants, referenced along with their thoughts by the corresponding pics. You might even use these lists yourself to find some inspiration. I hope you like what came out of this little endeavor, the guys worked hard on it!

Theme
Rolling on 1D10

1. Spots – Circles, dots, spheres, etc.
2. Fade – One or more colors shifting to others.
3. Blobs – Irregular blobs and patches of color.
4. Blocks – Squares, rectangles, cubes, etc.
5. Lines – Just what it says. One or more lines, parallel or not.
6. Camo – Just what it says. Pick or make a pattern and use your colors.
7. Dazzle – Eye-melting explorations of an evolutionary cul-de-sac in camo theory. I’m praying for you.
8. Animal Print – Wildlife-inspired patterns. Mammals, fish, birds, insects, reptiles, etc.
9. Worn and Weathered – Beat and batter your model like it just shortchanged a Diamond Shark. Rust, grime, wear, streaking, scrapes, mud, etc.
10. Stenciled – Bones, bands, checkers, quadrants, tessellations, tri-color, bi-color, liveries or distinct graphical embellishments.

Colorway
Rolling on 1D10

1. Desert – Any colors suitable for use in desert environments.
2. Woodland – M81 and OD enjoyers rejoice.
3. Jungle – Emerald greens and other conceivably tropical tones.
4. Urban – Grays, black, dusty brown, white, etc. Or go monochrome.
5. Arctic – Frigid white, pale gray, frosty blue, anything that says “cold.”
6. Basic – Pick a color. Use only shades and tints of it.
7. Patriotic – Colors chosen from a national flag, or the stereotypical colors of your favorite House or other faction.
8. Two-Tone – Pick two complimentary colors. Use those.
9. Foundry – Chrome, steel, iron, bronze, brass, verdigris, aluminum. Anything that says “metal”.
10. Hazard– Think heavy equipment manufacturers. Vivid, contrasting oranges, yellows, greens, reds, etc. Tones that will say “danger” in every language.

And now, on to the finished pieces!

Arclight Miniatures

Marauder IIC: Blobs, Hazard.

“I really enjoyed this friendly painting collective that came from the paint roulette challenge. In getting hazard marking colors as the color pallet, and blobs as the pattern style, I had a hard time initially in settling on a paint scheme. I feel the other folks within the challenge group decided on theirs fairly quickly, so I definitely felt the pressure to get going on the project.

I was pleased to find a paint scheme in Delta Galaxy, Clan Goliath Scorpion that had quasi blobs in the pattern as well as some pretty stark hazard marking colors present. I really enjoyed the challenge of trying to paint cracked basalt slabs with lava showing through. I have painted lava on bases before, but never on a mech, so this was new territory for me, and I am happy I finished the miniature.

All in all, I am really happy to have been invited to the challenge group. It was great to see a number of other painters I frequently see posting in the groups also rising to the challenge and putting in some really good work, even with many of us being pushed outside of our comfort zones. My hat is off to them, and I think we all owe it to Chad for pushing us to paint something unique.”

Jack Taylor

Mackie MSK-6S 00 “Beetlejuice”: Dazzle, Two-tone.

“Dazzle camouflage and contrasting colors are the theme here. I looked to World War I warships for inspiration and noticed they used lines that would run at different angles and I found them either offset, or perpendicular to each other. On this mech I best achieved that on the legs. For the torso I was just trying to break up the obvious outline. I originally intended for a different effect with the purple and yellow but couldn’t pull it off so in the end I opted to riff off of the 1st Free World Guards who use a white and purple with black accents.

The white and black definitely contrast but really the purple and yellow are the contrasting colors. With this mech I wanted to give it a battle worn look and I used a bright silver metallic paint stippled.”

Jeff Carlisle

Exterminator EXT-4D: Camo, Arctic

“Goal: camo/arctic. I was going for a WW2 Russian tank winter-ready look. I like this because it really blends into the environment well. I didn’t want to use an airbrush. I used multiple layers of white wash on a Vallejo’s Russian uniform.”

Joshua Watrous

Gladiator GLD-4R: Stencilled, Patriotic.

“When Chad first mentioned participating in a painting challenge, and then mentioned the people in the painting challenge, I was admittedly fairly nervous. These were some big names in the BattleTech hobby and several well beyond my league. Granted, it wasn’t a contest, so I decided to go along anyways just to see what would happen. My prompt was “Patriotic/Stencil”, and when Chad explained that this could be designwork, quartering, etc…my mind jumped to Space Marines and all those goofy quartered schemes that exist.

The next step was finding a suitable thing to feel patriotic about: money! I looked up some Solaris stables and found one that had no models painted on Camospecs, the Bulldog Cooperative. Even better, it was mentioned their mechs always featured red, and then usually black, white, and/or gray. Four colors, which is exactly what I needed. Though my model is by no means the most impressive in the group, it was a fun project that let me test some new paints and do something out of the ordinary.”

Joshua Bressel

Hi-Scout Drone Carrier: Lines, Desert.

“I chose the Hi-Scout drone carrier, as it’s a pretty obscure unit that you don’t often see, and I love delving into the rarely seen corners of Battletech. I got the challenge desert+lines, which threw me for a loop. I tried a version of desert night camo, which was a disaster, so I did a version of camo from an old Russian ammo pouch I had in my basement. I converted the aerial drone out of a bunch of bits.”

Dillon Masbruch

Archangel C-ANG Infernus: Fade, Foundry

“For this piece, I was assigned the theme of “Foundry”-like colors, calling for the use of metallic colors from gold, bronze, steel, chrome etc. The technique I was to perform was “Fade”, which required the switching from one color tone to another through a gradual color switch.

This mini, an Archangel Celestial Series Omnimech of the Word of Blake (praise Blake), was painted using non-metallic metal, and object source lighting techniques. The base was crafted using plasti-card atop a large IWM hex base. Using Army Painter speed paints, the color shifts from “zealot yellow” to “fire giant orange”, then fading into a cold steel/chrome using “cloudburst blue”.

Rob Jensen

Thug THG-11E: Animal Print, Urban

“Painting the Poison Arrow Thug…honestly it has been a godsend to have this project appear on my radar. I have been pushing on a number of business endeavors as of late, cutting the candle in half and burning it at all four stumps. Mini painting, art writ large, is a way to fuse the candle, to cool the flames, to bring balance to the system. Animal print + urban camouflage made for an interesting paint scheme. I tend to prefer saturated colors, which is the opposite of “urban camo”, so the challenge was fusing the two.

So that, combined with learning to use non-Citadel paints, made for an interesting quandary to address. When I was a kid, my mom bought me a blue poison arrow frog stuffed animal from The Nature Company, so the animal print choice was pre-determined. BLUE isnt exactly an urban color, but f*** it. Its my favorite color, theres history there, and it pops. Perhaps the Thug would find itself in an underwater city…then again, perhaps if I undertook this project again I would use greens instead of blue to provide arboreal urban camo.

Then again, I think the purpose of the challenge wasn’t to paint something purely pragmatic. It was to stretch the creativity, expand our painting technique, and to have fun.”

Note from the author: Do be sure to go check out Bobby’s other work at GodsparGames.com. He is a crackin’ good writer, and his ElectroDrome homebrew is my favorite arena supplement for BT ever. It is devastatingly cool, and he does not get nearly enough attention for it.

Adolfo Fernandez

Ymir BWP-2B: Spots, Patriotic

“When I found out my random roll results were spots and patriotic, I had a massive brain fart. But after some thinking, I remembered we were painting Battletech miniatures, and I decided to go with the Rasalhague 2nd Freeman standard camo scheme of starry sky with little spots of stars and hand painted trees forming sort of a tree line.

I looked at Camospecs for inspiration and tried to see if I could outdo what was already done there. It didn’t come out quite as good as I imagined it in my mind, but for every failure you learn something new, and I’m okay with what I learned doing this piece. Always challenge yourself and ask questions. Plenty of painters out there are happy to share what they learn, and they have helped me immensely. Feel free to reach out to me as well and I hope you enjoyed my piece.”

Daniel Corrigan

Puma Prime: Lines, Woodland

“Many thanks to Chad for including me in this. I am still a little astounded to find myself in such company. My Roulette rolls gave me Lines and Woodland Camouflage. It has been an excruciatingly fun project, well outside any of my comfort zones. My submission is a Ral Partha 20-615 OMNIMECH PUMA”

Note from the author: Check out more of Daniel’s work over on his Instagram.

Chad Nabors

Blackjack BJ-1: Worn-n-Weathered, Woodland

“Compared to some of my test subjec- er, fellow participants, I got off easy with my assignment. Battered military green machines just belong in BT. But in the spirit of the endeavor I wanted to take this a lot farther than my usual for wear and tear. So I decided to rust and stain a Blackjack to Kingdom Come; 6 different rust treatments, from textures and washes to various pigments, all layered and when necessary highlighted. Some of the effects are very subtle, but I wanted this rig to look super-flat and realistic. Hand-painted unit numbers and barrel blurb, some basing accoutrement and a lone footslogger in a shabby foxhole complete the gritty piece.”

The post Battletech Paint Roulette Invitational! appeared first on TheChadNabors.com.

Beyond this, BattleTech is now and has ever been super friendly to proxies: So long as you and your opponent know what a given unit on the board represents and which record sheet it is tied to, you are good to go. This is a huge boon for conversion modelers, or for folks who just want a different aesthetic for a given unit. These factors have given rise to something of a cottage industry of various manufacturers making stuff specifically for BattleTech. Or you can just as easily repurpose all sorts of other 6mm or 1:285 scale models from other lines for your BT games.

Below is a list of such model manufacturers and other purveyors of tabletop wargaming goodness, many of them my personal favorites in a given category. If you’re looking for your next favorite mech, padding your vehicle bays or just cruising for stuff to kit out your table, you are bound to find something to your taste.

NOTE: I’m not getting paid for any of these recommendations. These are just the providers I like best. Bookmark this page and check back, because I intend to add to it over time.

Mechs

Mechs are the stars of the show in BattleTech, naturally. Catalyst Game Labs has done a wonderful job revamping many of the most popular mechs in new and highly detailed (not to mention affordable) plastic, but there are hundreds and hundreds of different chassis in the game. Even moving at best speed it’s going to take them a while to get to all of them.

So whether you want old school aesthetics in classic metal, or modern multi-part resin kits suitable for kitbashing or your own custom designs, the following manufacturers are there for you.

Iron Wind Metals

The long runner in the BattleTech space, and the only other official manufacturer of units for the game. Iron Wind Metals, or popularly IWM, has the distinction of being the provider of official BattleTech minis, and also making the most designs out of any manufacturer. Most of IWM’s sculpts have a decidedly dated aesthetic and have not yet benefited from an official facelift. But some latter-day sculpts are remarkably detailed and nicely scaled, and there are metal versions of a few of the new Catalyst sculpts. Others are, let’s say, definitely products of their time.

Also, scaling is all over the place, particularly concerning earlier designs and this might be aggravating for some of us. Nonetheless, for cutting-edge 1980s cool or rare mech designs, IWM will still deliver. If you’re looking for bits for conversions or different variants, make sure you check out the Scrapyard; parts for miles!

Strato Minis Studio

Plenty of my readers will no doubt already be familiar with Strato Minis Studio. For supremely detailed resin minis, there is hardly any manufacturer that does it better. Particularly notable is the fact that they offer two different lines for your giant robot jollies: Retrobots and Hardwar. Retrobots are legally distinct but modernized versions of some of the most popular BattleTech mech designs, and ones that somehow still look like a past era’s vision of the same mechs. Very cool. Their own original Hardwar mechs run the design gamut from chunky industrial labor rigs to ultra sleek and waspy killers. Arguably a totally different vibe from BattleTech, but few players will mind and some of them are truly slick.

Great attention to detail, interchangeable parts and many options, lots to love here.

Death Ray Designs

One of my favorite manufacturers that has seemingly exploded in the past year or so, Death Ray Designs offers a wide variety of what I call “BattleTech adjacent” designs in their Solar Shift line, and their own unique multipart modular offerings under the Steel Rift lineup.

Their resin is tough, and all of their designs have a sort of unified design that gives the impression they all share similar technology. The details are definitely there, but done in a uniquely chunky and simple style, making them easy to paint well and quickly; something I have definitely grown to appreciate after tangling with a handful of hyper-detailed 3D-printed designs on my paint desk recently! For kitbashing or just slamming together serviceable stand-ins, they rock.

Metal Core Collectibles

If you love multi-part resin kits with tons of options for loadouts and posing, it is truly hard to beat Metal Core Collectibles. All of their mech designs are unique but look like they could have stepped right out of any BattleTech TRO. I know mono-pose minis are the only way to go for some folks, but I always feel like I’m getting my money’s worth when I put together a multi-part kit as slick as these.

Kids Logic

If you remember BattleTech from the wayback beforetimes, terms like unseen probably mean something to you. If that’s the case, or if you came to BattleTech by way of franchises like Robotech or Macross, you might like these mechs by Kids Logic. Completely authentic to that original aesthetic! Why BattleTech mechs share an aesthetic with those other properties is a long, long article for another day.

Hardware Studios

Hardware Studios is best known for producing deliciously detailed, intricate and impressive dropship models. One even functions as a carrying case for a lance. But they also make some really splendid mechs, including a couple of outlandish ones you’ll just have to see for yourself. Their Plaguefighter is one of my favorites.

Talon Games

Talon Games makes metal and plastic minis for CAV, another another sci-fi military game centered around making huge, bipedal warmachines feel plausible. CAV and ergo Talon has some pretty cool mechs, but the design philosophy behind most of them is noticeably different and doesn’t quite stack up to BattleTech. And all of their minis are 10mm scale which makes them noticeably too big against your usual BT minis. Nonetheless, some players like using their designs as superheavies or as parts donors for their own creations. They are definitely priced right!

Vehicles

Presently, there are precious few updated vehicle models for BattleTech available from Catalyst Game Labs, though more are coming thanks to the current Mercenaries Kickstarter. But fear not: Plenty of 3rd party manufacturers have stepped up to help fill in the gap.

Iron Wind Metals

Once again, we go with the classics. IWM makes all of the official BattleTech vehicle models at the moment. They are all metal, and many of them have plenty of charm. Regrettably, many of them are also positively ancient: many sculpts show low or basic details and have wonky scaling. In their defense, they all have that distinct BattleTech aesthetic that we all know and love. I still get plenty of vintage metal vees from them.

Khurasan Miniatures

Khurasan Miniatures is a lesser-known but really prolific manufacturer of metal wargaming miniatures, in all kinds of scales to suit any setting. Their 6mm sci-fi lineup is comparatively limited next to the rest of their frankly enormous catalog, but what they do have is perfect for BattleTech. Especially cool are the loving homages to other sci-fi properties in there.

Tanks, APCs, light armored vehicles, hovercraft and more; they’ve got it.

Strato Mini Studio

Strato Minis Studio makes a lot more than just mechs, and arguably their vehicles are even nicer. Also resin, and available in two different but complimentary lines: their own Hardwar lineup which has a broad variety of sci-fi vehicles for any purpose, from hulking super heavy main battle tanks to specialized hovering electronic warfare rigs. If you have any specific battlefield need, there is bound to be something in the Hardwar catalog for you.

But my personal favorites have come from their collaboration with Streiger Design. These are, once again, legally distinct “reimagined” versions of classic BattleTech tanks and other vehicles lovingly made with an eye for realism, scale and detail that is virtually unrivaled in the industry right now. They are awesome, and I recommend them wholeheartedly.

Death Ray Designs

DRD has their own sweet selection of vehicles under both the Solar Shift and Steel Rift lines, and I like both for different purposes. Once more, the Solar Shift line definitely caters to BattleTech proper, with suitably rugged-looking generic APCs (utilizing any motive system you could desire) along with their interpretations of some of the most popular tanks in the setting. The weapon systems on the models have a consistent aesthetic no matter what chassis they are fitted to, making identification easy at a glance. Touches like that, I appreciate. All are great options for out-of-the-box use with existing record sheets.

Their vehicles in the Steel Rift line are notable for sheer cool factor, with each of the three warring faction’s offerings having a completely distinct design aesthetic that is instantly recognizable. All of them would look right at home in BattleTech and are begging for custom sheets statted to your desires.

Metal Core Collectibles

Metal Core Collectibles also produces their own totally unique lineup of vehicles that have the same modular design philosophy as their mechs. There are variants for any conceivable purpose and all are a blast to put together. Those spare bits and conversion kits are perfect for kitbashing, too.

Brigade Models

Brigade Models is a well-known UK manufacturer of small-scale wargaming miniatures, and they have a huge and varied catalog serving various properties. If you want gritty, realistic vehicles the Hammer’s Slammers offerings are wonderful. But no matter what sort of sci-fi aesthetic you are trying to hit with your forces, they’ll have something that will do the job.

GHQ Models

Purveyors of ultra-detailed 1:285 scale metal miniatures, all of GHQ’s minis are scale models of real-world military hardware from various nations and from various eras in history. Many of these are a bit too small to scale well with the newest BattleTech miniatures, but they look pretty good next to the older metal mechs. If you need generic tanks to make several companies’ worth of Scorpions or lots of APCs, they can be a great option.

Darkest Star Games

Darkest Star Games is an underrated source of metal vehicles that are the right size for BattleTech, and priced right. Their 6mm and 15mm scale sci-fi miniatures have a decidedly retro-futuristic look. The best way I can describe it is thus: take various Cold War-era NATO and Warsaw Pact military vehicles, spruce them up with futuristic VisMod kits and maybe slap a hover hull on it, then ship it. It sounds a little wonky, but I promise it just works. Check out the Cobra MBT below and you’ll see what I mean. Surprisingly detailed, and some of my very favorites. Don’t sleep on them!

Microworld Games

Microworld Games is notable for making various 6mm scale models with hugely differing tech levels. If you want ramshackle, weaponized civilian vehicles, high-tech MBTs or delicate, insect-like gunships, there is a little something here for everybody.

Hardware Studios

Hardware Studios, as mentioned above, makes some truly wonderful vehicles to include a wide variety of tanks, aircraft, utility and construction vehicles. Even naval vessels! All are of superb quality and richly detailed.

Sage Print Labs

The first and last word for updated versions of classic BattleTech aerospace and conventional fighter designs.

Infantry

If you truly want to complete your BattleTech experience, you’ve got to get infantry on the field. I’ve got a whole post coming on that, but trust me for now. In the meantime, grab your tiny dudes from the sellers below.

Darkest Star Games

Darkest Star Games makes my absolute, hands-down favorite 6mm infantry in the form of their Federation Lift Marines: space-suited, tons of different styles, poses, weapons and even tiny little hovercar “jeeps” that are perfect for modeling motorized infantry. Outstanding details and priced right, these infantry, more than any other, have the personality I want for my valiant space pirate footsloggers. I know they will probably get obliterated on turn two, but they are going to look good before they go.

Death Ray Designs

Death Ray Designs scoring the trifecta with affordably priced packs of resin battle armor and traditional sci-fi infantry. Lots of different weapons to choose from and they even have motorized infantry offerings on ATVs and attack bikes. Their Silverback suits are one of the best battle armor buys around. They are killer, check them out.

Khurasan Miniatures

You can find Khurasan Miniatures 6mm infantry on the same page as the rest of their science fiction offerings in the same scale. Lots of good choices here, but do make sure you check out the “Exterminators” line for the upcoming Aliens-Battletech crossover of my dreams. Game over, man!

Strato Minis Studio

Strato has a unique take with their infantry offerings, selling them as tiny individual models, and also as one-piece bases complete with detailed terrain and sometimes fieldworks. Various armaments are easy to tell apart, and if you hate messing with modeling or basing these fiddly little guys these are a wonderful choice that can save your sanity.

Microworld Games

Microworld Games is a gold mine for players and modelers that want to explore the cracks and crevices of BT lore- and gameplay! Do you want traditional beast-mounted infantry cavalry riding raptor analogs into battle? How about a T-Rex carrying mech-grade weapons? They’ve got it. And that is canon, by the way: BattleTech is Lizards. Maybe you need a rowdy band of Periphery denizens armed with improvised weapons? They can do that too.

Ironwind Metals

IWM leaves no stone unturned with their BT lineup. There are some surprisingly great infantry choices here, and many of the older sculpts still hold up pretty well, particularly the battle armor. When it comes to conventional infantry though, scaling variations can be extremely noticeable. Again, not an issue for everyone, but if possible try to get a measurement on something before you order (if you care). I particularly like the Davion and Kurita infantry 3-sprues, and their various biker infantry models.

GHQ Models

More so than their vehicles, GHQ’s metal infantry are ideal for BattleTech. Cheap, highly detailed and available in all kinds of poses and kits with all kinds of weapons. You really cannot tell an M4 from a laser rifle at this scale, can you?

Terrain

If you want to give your maps some distinction and easy readability, or put together a 3D board that will bend the senses, you’re going to need terrain.

Death Ray Designs

Death Ray Designs again offers a lot of variety, this time with terrain. From laser-cut MDF building kits to 3D-printed resin models, they offer stuff that is perfect for field bases, fortifications and a lot more.

Thunderhead Studio

Thunderhead Studio crushes it with every, single release. They offer pre-printed sets of varying complexity that will suit any budget, or STLs to print your own. Most of them are modular and designed with an eye for playability: consistent heights between levels, flat surfaces for units to rest on, the works. Excellent in every regard, get them!

Gale Force Nine

I’m putting Gale Force Nine on the list because they recently partnered with Thunderhead Studio up there to produce a line of pre-painted buildings. Yes, actually pre-painted. You might like painting as much as I do, but even my motivation wavers on terrain sometimes, especially for pieces I won’t use all the time. These are already hot sellers and with good reason. They make other great terrain lines, too.

Strato Minis Studio

Killer buildings from Strato, with a variety of styles from martian colonies to future dystopia desert cities. Lots of modularity and greebles, perfect if you want to assemble larger complexes. Their Mars Colony set was instrumental in putting together my long-running moonbase board.

Iliada Game Studio

Turkey-based maker of laser-cut MDF terrain, Iliada Game Studio has a style and a set for every conceivable purpose, and my favorite is a truly clever collection of convertible high-rise buildings that can go from “intact” to “destroyed rubble” in one second flat: perfect for city fights. All of the sets are priced right, and be sure to check out their line of 6mm vehicles too; I know the stacked MDF aesthetic isn’t for everyone, especially compared to some of the splendidly-detailed models offered by others on my big list here, but many of the designs are quite characterful and a great option for anyone who is looking to brawl on a budget. Remember: BT is proxy-friendly!

TTCombat

TTCombat makes some impressively large and intricate laser-cut MDF terrain for 28mm wargamers, but don’t write them off just yet: the universe of BattleTech is chock-full of colossal megastructures, and some of TTC’s industrial and generic sci-fi sets could work well in that regard.

Creative Juggernaut

Creative Juggernaut is helmed by such BattleTech luminaries as Brent Evans and Blaine Lee Pardoe, and is notable for producing multi-part resin kit versions of some of the newest BattleTech mech sculpts. All fine, but my favorite products of theirs are actually their bases. Standard-size hex bases pre-sculpted with badlands, desert or lunar terrain. If basing is just not your thing, or if you prefer to spend that hobby time on the units themselves, these are a big time saver and look great.

Xmarx

Another long-running producer of terrain, Xmarx produces a surprisingly good variety of terrain optimized for Battletech, from modular geodesic dome installations to conventional buildings, turrets, mech bays and more.

Mats

If you want to play with miniatures rules or just put together the most impressive board possible, you’re going to need a gaming mat.

Cigar Box Battle

My favorite boutique maker of ultra-detailed gaming mats. Oversized, most measuring about 5 feet by 7 feet. These mats are cloth, like a blanket, not neoprene like a mouse pad. Don’t let this turn you off. I was unsure at first, too, but now I’m a devout convert. The colors and details on these cloth mats are nothing short of amazing, and they fold up compact for easy transport. It also happens to be much easier to place foam slabs beneath these for elevation changes compared to a neoprene mat, and you can fold the mat in a snap to make a smaller board. Worth the money, and worth the wait: recommended!

Frontline Gaming

Frontline Gaming. You know them, you love them. They have neoprene mats in any size and any style you could possibly want.

Deep Cut Studios

Premium producers of neoprene gaming mats and related terrain, Deep Cut Studios can provide a mat for any conceivable terrain you can think of, and plenty that you can’t. Shop by scale, size, terrain type and more. They even make double-sided mats.

Game Aids

These are items that don’t really fit into any category above, but are some goodies that can make your games go a little smoother or help you and other players keep track of vital information.

Death Ray Designs

DRD’s Alpha Strike and Gaming Markers sets contain tons of tokens that are purpose-made for BattleTech, and can help you visually keep track of damage, status changes, special equipment and end-of-phase or end-of-turn rolls with colorful tokens. I know some players do not appreciate cluttering up a board with tokens and chits, but when you’re playing Classic BattleTech, with all of its deliciously nuanced crunch, these are super handy and highly attractive. Many color options for multiple players. Get some.

Litko Game Accessories

Litko offers a variety of trackers, tokens and decorative indicators specifically for BattleTech, among other games. They cover a lot of the same situations and uses as the DRD stuff above, but they also make some purely fun stuff like explosion markers, jumping unit stands, fire and smoke tokens and a lot more.

The post The Best Game Resources for BattleTech appeared first on TheChadNabors.com.

Battletech, real Battletech, also known as Classic Battletech, is one of longest-running wargames around. It is also one of the crunchiest, no question. That sweet, delicious crunch is partly makes Battletech so endearing. But even though it is nominally a skirmish game, it has garnered a reputation as a game that takes a long time to get through. How long? If you are lucky, you can slog through a small scuffle by lunchtime on the day of your funeral. With effort, a company-sized engagement will wrap up before our sun goes out. Hyperbole, yes, but only just if you aren’t running your games with an eye toward efficiency.

Battletech can eat up the hours compared to most other games of this scale, but it does not have to. I’ve played a ton of Battletech, in just about every way it can be played, and I’ve noticed the same recurring issues bog down the game. Below, I will share my 5 remedies for these issues that will have you sailing through your games with time to spare.

Learn the Relevant Rules, Front to Back

This is as elementary as it gets, but I am continually surprised by how many players neglect this essential task. Every time a situation comes up in game- be it a question on firing arcs, movement penalties, equipment function, shooting modifiers, skidding or anything else- and a player has to go diving into the voluminous rulebooks in quest of an answer, the game grinds to a halt. If this is happening with every player, in every turn or, Heaven help us, in every phase of every turn the game is going to be an exercise in long-suffering endurance.

It can instead be a pleasant exercise in perforating your friends with hypervelocity lead if only all players will take the time to really learn the relevant rules. I say relevant rules because BT has tons and tons of them. Many books’ worth! But only a fraction of them are needed or even used in an average game. For instance, if you aren’t using vehicles or infantry, you don’t need to waste time learning those rules until the time comes. If you aren’t playing in built-up areas with concrete or asphalt, or ice, you won’t need skidding rules. 

But you should be reading and re-reading (and practicing with) all of the rules and charts that will come up in your games until they are second nature. It isn’t difficult, and most of Battletech’s rules are logical and easy to memorize. And before you say it: of course, beginners get plenty of slack. We all started somewhere. But if you and your friends have been through a half-dozen games and everyone is still fumbling their way through a turn, there is a player-knowledge problem.

Keep Players Focused on the Game at Hand

This issue neatly dovetails with the previous one, and handily leads to the next one. This issue is also not unique to Battletech, but because BT tends to proceed slowly I see it pop up more around our tables than at others. If players are swapping memes, looking up anime clips on YouTube, digging for their favorite podcast or just watching dustmotes float on sunbeams, they aren’t getting set for their next activation or the next phase, i.e. they aren’t “looking for work.”

This is not good, and greatly contributes to slowdown. When this butterfly-chasing player’s activation comes up they resurface in the present and are totally flat-footed, unsure of what has happened and what they should be doing. Instead of analyzing and planning their next tasks in real time, they are doing it on everyone else’s time. Regrettable, avoidable and rude. 

All players should be able to have fun and cut up with their buddies around the table. Beer, pretzels, jokes, merriment, all that. But it should not come at the cost of the proceedings which all players are ostensibly there to enjoy collaboratively. If you are a plank owner, GM or other “driver” at your table, give these distracted players a friendly nudge, verbally, when you see them drifting. If they don’t self-correct, tell them privately that they need to do better to keep the game moving briskly. 

Use a Timer in the Movement Phase

Another constant issue, one fed by the former and hardly unique to Battletech. Some players simply take way, way too much time to plot and make moves. They are the risk-managers, the min-maxers, the atom-splitters and the slowpokes. These players so fear making a bad move, or not making a good one, they spend many minutes calculating the outcomes of every possible move they could make with all of their units, and all of the possible countermoves foes could make. The inevitable result is that the movement phase gobbles up 95 percent of the game clock. 

I get it: everyone wants to do good and demonstrate tactical proficiency and game mastery. No one wants to make a critical mistake. These things take time. Battletech players especially don’t want anything bad to happen to their pet mech and favorite pilot. Spoiler: it absolutely will. But they just take too long! This is why staying on task and focused is so important. Players who are paying attention (see previous) can “pre-game” all available moves and reactions; if my opponent does this, I’ll do this, or I could do this, this or this. That’s all it takes to make a move in seconds on an activation.

But some folks who are particularly prone to analysis paralysis and just cannot, or will not, pick up the pace should be subjected to a timer in the movement phase, commensurate with their game fluency. I like 60 seconds, max, and 30 seconds is fine for seasoned players. To clarify: the timer should be used for every player’s activation in the movement phase in such a case. This will demonstrate to the time vampire that careful moves can be made under time constraints and actual gameplay at the table.

If the timer runs out, the activation is lost and will not be recovered. This means a unit does not get a move. Call it combat shock, or that their pilot is just so dumbfounded at witnessing my valiant Hornet smoke-check a Turkina with a single LRM that they just forgot where they were. The message is clear: make a move, or lose a move. I promise, this will cure them of their issue and they will probably start to enjoy the game more.

Play with Objectives

One of my favorite methods for speeding up the game. It is fun and easy to play a “deathmatch” in Battletech: a standup fight, meeting engagement, showdown, whatever you want to call it. Two sides fight until only one remains. Hard to go wrong with it, but the problem is that this game type, surprisingly, often takes a long time. Players routinely spend too much time hiding in cover and swapping low-percentage shots at range, and if the game doesn’t end until every mech on one side is hard-bent wrecked it is going to be a long day.

That’s fine, if all players are there for it and have the time. But a great way to speed things up and keep things sporty is to use objectives. Be they the pre-baked scenarios in any of the rule- or sourcebooks, or some other kind of objective one of the players cooked up, having some other metrics to determine winning and losing will greatly streamline the game.

If you have pre-set victory and loss conditions, everyone will know when the game is truly over- or when it can no longer be won, meaning capitulation is in order. Sometimes that is just as important! Plus, objective games can be a ton of fun in Battletech, beyond just slamming two forces into each other until they are all slag. I’ll be making a future post about some of my favorite scenarios and objectives in the near future, stay tuned for that. 

Use Forced Withdrawal

Speaking of slamming forces of mechs into each other, mechs are tough in Battletech. Like, supremely tough. For those who are uninitiated, a battlemech, in game, that has two-thirds of its torso blown off, a badly damaged engine, a half-busted gyro, one leg, no arms and a pilot so battered they lost 30 IQ points is still, technically, in the fight. It isn’t combat effective, but it can still try and fight if the player commands it.

That is, unless Forced Withdrawal rules are in effect. Forced Withdrawal is an entirely logical, but optional, rule found in Total Warfare and the BattleMech Manual. Essentially, it simulates that a person piloting a mech actually wants to live to fight another day and, more importantly for their commander or employer, not lose their mech in a fight. Accordingly, when a unit takes Crippling Damage, or when a pilot sustains enough wounds, the unit must start withdrawing. 

This is not only more simulationist, which is rad, but it makes it much easier to take a unit out of the fight and determine victory points. You can also do fun variations on it like making commanders or player characters immune to Forced Withdrawal while their underlings are still subject to it. Stuff like that. A highly recommended rule, and it is the rare game me and mine play these days without it. 

You’ll Be Cruising Through Games in a Flash

Using these tips together, it is entirely possible to motor through a sizeable game of Classic Battletech in a reasonable amount of time. We routinely get through lance-on-lance fights in just a couple of hours, and much larger games can be done in one afternoon. You can do the same: If your games feel like eternity in purgatory or a trip to the DMV (but I repeat myself) take stock and implement some of my favorite fixes.

The post 5 Tips to Speed Up Classic BattleTech appeared first on TheChadNabors.com.

But all ribbing aside, I do think this conceit is one of the things that makes BattleTech so fun. Colossal shootouts occur at whites-of-the-eyes ranges, often literally! The notion of two giant robotic vehicles tearing each other apart in a point-blank, one-on-one firestorm is nothing short of awesome. You’ll get no complaints from me!

But, even though most of the firefights in BattleTech are portrayed as happening at these short ranges, I don’t believe forcing the fight into these ranges is a good thing. And that outcome is all but certain if you play on a map or board that is too small. I’ll explain why below.

Room to Run is Room for Fun

I assert that your average BattleTech player conducts a game on a map that is far too small to let the mechanics of the game really shine. How so? Small maps basically take all of the maneuver elements out of the proceedings.

When you are constrained to playing on a single map sheet, or maybe two for larger engagements, it is the tactical equivalent of a knife fight in a phone booth: You are constantly entangled with your opponent, withdrawal is impossible, and the only thing that matters is piling on enough damage to stop them before they do the same to you. You won’t be able to find favorable avenues of approach or escape, exploit cover to its fullest or standback and conduct a proper firefight. It is this tendency to cram the game into too small a space that leads to an entirely common occurrence in a game of BattleTech, what I call the the Kickfest; an event which usually ends in a Boot Party.

Kickfests look like this: Both sides get in one turn of shooting as they charge forward, maybe two, and then they meet in close combat and kick it out somewhere near the middle of the map. In BT, Mech-sized kicks are both very damaging, highly likely to cripple and also highly likely to knock down one or both mechs that are so engaged. Those piloting skill rolls will get you in the end! After one mech falls, or maybe both, wingmen from both Kickfest participants will arrive and then the Boot Party begins with any mech on the ground being the guest of honor. Soon enough, one mech is stomped out, being unable to regain its feet and severely disadvantaged trying to shoot from prone.

While undeniably spectacular and for some of us the real joy of the game, this is not what I would call a complex or fulfilling wargame exercise. Strictly in game terms, it is not the best use of your mechs, especially if you’re playing in a campaign setting or multiple linked scenarios where the disposition of your forces at the end of a battle has real consequences for the next one. Why carry all these sweet future weapons if you are just going to brawl? Well, it did happen plenty in the lore…

Small Maps Hamstring Some Mechs

My other major gripe about small maps is that light mechs are unduly punished. Light mechs are usually phenomenal scouts, harassers and flankers, and sometimes backstabbers able to dance around larger foes. But they don’t hold up to more than a turn or two in a serious exchange of fire and they really aren’t designed to, either. A light mech’s speed, ability to get to where it is least welcomed, and ability to quickly threaten crippled or out-of-position units are its best attributes

When you play on a small map these attributes count for little. Unable to lurk out of range, dash from cover point to cover point or exploit circuitous paths to gain advantage, what invariably happens is that light mechs are forced to play against their weaknesses for the duration of the game. They can run the gauntlet and try to take the back of a larger mech, be used as a sacrificial decoy, or committed in a vain attempt to add a little bit of weight to a firefight before they get turned to wholesale scrap.

My point is that light mechs are truly handicapped on small maps. Without any room to really run, no room to maneuver, no space in which to gallop, larger, tougher mechs that can survive the Kickfest, an event that will occur, become the only sensible choices for your BV budget. Lights will be relegated to using up leftover points only, or played for the rare objective game where speed counts above all other considerations.

Objective Games Work Better on Big Maps

Speaking of objectives, larger map size is especially important if you’re playing with any kind of objective, no matter what it is. I’ve watched several games go down where one force had to either break through enemy lines and move off the map edge opposite the deployment zone to win; on a single map sheet, the advancing player was able to do it in just three turns, and six turns on two sheets! For the former, defenders quite literally did not have enough time to lay guns and do enough damage to impede their progress, and the dismay on the defending player’s face was apparent.

On a slightly different tack, any sort of objective raid is made much more interesting on a larger board: steal the supplies, destroy the building, targeted takedown, whatever. Giving defenders more room is giving them ability and opportunity to mount an effective defense without being stuck right on top of the objective. This makes life much harder for the attackers but it also gives them an interesting, and fair, challenge. Starting any objective game on a smaller map means it is likely, if not certain, that the attackers will start within range of the objective.

From there, your only choice to prolong the festivities is to make the target extremely tough. An option, perhaps, but not an ideal one sometimes. These are just a few examples of how larger maps promote better objective play, but I could go on.

Broaden Your Horizons, or at Least the Map Boundaries

The solution to these insidious problems, obviously, is to simply play on a bigger map as a matter of policy; a significantly bigger map than you would think you need for the size of engagement you are playing.

If I’m playing a bog-simple two-on-two with mechs only, I want to play on at least two map sheets, and I can make a great argument for four placed in a 2×2 or 1×4 arrangement depending on the mission. If I am on a 3D terrain board, I think a 3’x3’ is the bare minimum, and 4’x4’ or 6’x4’ is a lot better once you start adding more units and objectives beyond “eliminate the other team. Remember that it is possible to start one player farther in on the field if and when appropriate!

But ultimately, it’s your game and you and your guys should play however you want. If you do in fact desire every, single game to be a short, vicious and violent affair, where luck decides the outcome as much as tactics, smaller maps will facilitate that. If you just want some honest-to-goodness arena combat, a single mapsheet might be the way to go. But if you want to kick in more nuance and subtleties no matter what rule set or optional rules you are using, take my advice and use a bigger map than you think you need. The terrain will be more important, your tactics can become more sophisticated and all unit choices will be a lot more meaningful.

Put it to the test and see what you think.

The post Why Bigger Maps are Best in BattleTech appeared first on TheChadNabors.com.

The gaming public has certainly responded positively to BattleTech’s resurgence and there’s been a big bump in new player interest accordingly. I have been very active in the game and active online in the player base for several years now, and I noticed the same questions, even complaints, pop up over and over again among newcomers. However they were articulated, with few exceptions all of these queries pointed to one thing: This is a game that is so huge, so deep and has so many moving parts that it can easily swamp beginners with seemingly countless choices and variables, and overload is the inevitable result.

When your mental crankcase starts to smoke and spark like a ruptured reactor casing, enjoyment swifty ends and interest usually wanes very shortly thereafter. If you are one of those confused and reeling new players, I’ve got the cure for those newcomer blues. I’ve identified what I think are the three biggest snags for beginners in the game generally, and to crush them I’ll provide some hard-earned guidance that will turn that infamous BattleTech learning cliff into a gentle, negotiable learning curve.

BattleTech is One of the Best, and also Most Immense Wargames Out There

BattleTech’s single biggest strength is also a pretty big hurdle for new players: this is a game and universe that is absolutely immense. It has been going continuously, though not always going strong, since the mid-1980s. There’s a ton of fiction, sourcebooks, rulesets and more out there.

But when any dense, deep-dish, mega-crunchy sci-fi property like this has run for so long, basically unchanged, it accumulates quite a baggage train, and that can make it intimidating and hard to navigate for newcomers. But let’s say you just don’t care about all that lore and what came before. You think giant robots are rad in games like this, and you just want to hurl yours against your opponent’s until they or the people inside them break. I like your style, reader! But now all you have to do is choose what books and resources you think you’ll need.

But it is just a boardgame, how hard can it be!? Concerning the basic rules themselves, nowhere near as hard as some people make it out to be. The rules are mostly logical, the phases in a turn are simple, and all the arithmetic needed to calculate target numbers is easy. Everything is just D6s, usually two, sometimes one. If you knew nothing else and bought only the Beginner Box or A Game of Armored Combat box, read the manual and extorted a pal into playing with you, you’ll be well on your way.

The troubles start when it is time to figure out all of the things surrounding and facilitating the mayhem on the board.

The Biggest Beginner Obstacles in BattleTech

Obstacle #1: Poor Onboarding for New Players

BattleTech is an easy game to enter, but not an easy game to navigate and grow with. Yes, the Beginner Box is clearly labeled as the on-ramp, and it is a good one; an ideal entry point for anyone that is new to the series. The A Game of Armored Combat Box (or AGOAC) box, is a great taste of proper, Classic BattleTech (Classic is a term you’ll see often, referring to the original, highly detailed ruleset as opposed to the simpler, abstracted Alpha Strike ruleset). But neither box does much to prepare players on where to go from there if they want to grow their collection.

What mechs go with what faction? Does it even matter? What is the “standard” pickup game of BT you could expect to play in a tournament or at your local shop? What is BV or battle value? Where can I find record sheets and other resources for the mechs I want to field?

Putting together a game of BattleTech is easy once you know what the important factors are, but unfortunately there’s really no such thing as a “standard” game of BattleTech, and neither of the entry point boxes really explain these concepts to you adequately. That also leads neatly into the next hurdle.

Obstacle #2: Little to No Guidance on Faction Selection or Force-Building

BattleTech is very unlike all of our other tabletop war games on the market in one fundamental regard: making your faction selection clear and providing players with a list of units to choose from to build their force.

In 40K, your faction choices are blazing neon-bright and clear from the outset: you can choose from the Space Marines, the Astra Militarum, the Tau, the Necrons, or whatever, and then buy this book to start building this army. You have clearly delineated army lists with clear options and rules for units, you then pick what you want, tally the cost and go. Yes, I know it’s a little more complex than that, but there are definite “guardrails” for what you can pick and field under what circumstances.

BattleTech has none of this. It has colossal mountains of lore fleshing out who the major and minor players are in the universe, what they represent and how their military is styled, for lack of a better word, but it does not give you any guidance or hard rules whatsoever on what mechs and other units you could, should or must choose and why. In fact, unless you are playing a strict scenario or you and your opponent have agreed to choose from sharply limited acquisition tables (tables buried way in the back of only a few rule books) you can field literally any unit you want as long as it meets the agreed-upon BV or tonnage cap for the game, and belongs in the era. Even the last constraint is flimsy in pickup games or casual play.

This is certainly great for miniature collectors or players who just like the look or performance of certain mechs but for new players who need and want distinct choices of faction army with equally distinct unit selection that resonate with them, it is a question mark: faction choice basically does not matter unless you learn enough lore to make it matter.

Obstacle #3: Impenetrable Complexity Progression

The single greatest thing about BattleTech is its sheer adaptability and complexity for folks who want to tinker or who desire ever-greater detail. I know there is a distinct trend towards quick, abstracted, smaller-scale war games and skirmish games these days, but Classic BattleTech always was and remains today boldly crunchy, even simulationist, in the face of simplification and abstraction.

If you want to move beyond the simple two-on-two or four-on-four mech fights, you can. You can go so far beyond the basic setup shown in the Beginner Box and AGOAC boxes it is almost unsettling: you can add infantry, vehicles, full rules for pilot and crew progression and injuries, weather and terrain conditions, upkeep, maintenance, logistics, staffing and a whole heck of a lot more. You can go all the way up to planning in minute detail invasions of solar systems, and then play them out one tabletop battle at a time if you want to, calculating budgets and death benefits for dependents of the dearly departed KIA the whole way.

It is nuts- absolutely nuts. And that’s also what makes BattleTech great. But this is an ocean of detail for people who might just want a drink to quench their thirst, if that makes sense. Learning where the game elements you want actually are and then figuring out how to intelligently layer them and how they interact with each other is borderline alchemical for those players who haven’t been at it for years.

Solutions, and Understanding What BattleTech Really Is

BattleTech is, at its nuclear heart, a board game. It is also a 3D terrain tabletop miniatures game. It is also a pretty rad TTRPG, and can even be a galactic military conquest simulator. But BT, in totality, really isn’t any of those things.

BattleTech is a “Build-Your-Own” game. BattleTech is truly a set of ingredients, or rather a set of modular components. It is a set of components used to craft the science-fiction experience that you want to have. Giant, vaguely humanoid war machines going to war will almost invariably but not always be at the center of that experience, but where you go and how you shape that experience is up to you.

Whether you want casual and sporty deathmatches you and a pal can plow through on Saturdays in a couple of hours, a fully-featured tactical- or strategic-level military simulation, a TTRPG or even a collaborative, narrative-driven RPG-lite, BattleTech can deliver, and amazingly it can deliver with any combination of those features and flavor that you want.

A high degree of interoperability with all those expansions, rules and add-ons, even with varying levels of granularity means you can really, truly tailor your game to precisely what scratches your tabletop itch. You and your group might want smaller bands of mechs and pilots on long campaigns with way more RPG elements for growth and progression, making it feel closer to DnD in the way it plays sometimes. You might want huge set-piece engagements with air, arty and reinforcements, but still want it done quick.

Whatever you want, BT can do it. It is incredibly freeing, but also pretty intimidating, even for seasoned hobbyists and gamers. Setting out with that notion in mind, I’ve got four tips that will help you get going in BattleTech quickly while maximizing your enjoyment.

Solution #1: Get the AGOAC or Beginner Box First

BattleTech can be purchased in an ala carte fashion of individual models and rulebooks, but that way lies danger. Your very first stop in BattleTech as a newcomer should be the A Game of Armored Combat box or the Beginner Box. Both are Classic BattleTech- the superior system, says I- and both are easy to get started playing with being completely self-contained experiences. Miniatures, dice, maps, manual, standees: you’re ready to roll with either one.

The Beginner Box is a significantly stripped-down ruleset, eliminating approximately half of the mechanics that are intrinsic to classic BT. This doesn’t make it any less fun or exciting to play for some folks, and what you do learn in the Beginner Box transfers directly to the rules found in the AGOAC box, and also full Total Warfare-level rules.

And, for well under $100, you can get both if you want to and you’ll have an excellent core collection of material and models starting out.

Solution #2: Figure Out What Experience You Want to Have; Buy Accordingly

Once you are seasoned on the Beginner Box or the AGOAC box rules, it’s time to start drilling down and figuring out what you, or you and your group, want to play. Specifically what you want out of the experience. Don’t get me wrong, you can play either for a long time and have a blast but there’s a lot more to BattleTech than what is in those boxes.

If you are in love with the idea of RPG elements, you might want to look at A Time of War or MechWarrior: Destiny depending on your preferences. Players who want even more units and military action should be looking at Total Warfare for the most complete all-around rulebook. The BattleMech Manual, or BMM, is another good choice and a better at-the-table reference, but you will lose out on all the combined arms stuff found in Total Warfare.

If you love the setting and the aesthetic, but want faster, simpler gameplay, Alpha Strike might be the way. It also has a nice box set, and you’ll be happy to know that Alpha Strike and the Classic system use the same models.

Solution #3: Don’t Let Lore Stop You

I know this is cast iron apostasy to the BattleTech faithful, but I’m standing by it: Don’t let the lore stop you from having a good time and telling the stories you want to tell on the table!

Yes, BT has all the trappings of a historical war game when it comes to time, place, tables of organization and equipment, heraldry and all that jazz. There are incredibly intricate color schemes, unit dispositions, pilot rosters, planetary data all of that. If that’s your jam, dig in and enjoy building one of those forces, completely canon-correct, and nailing every detail when it comes to setting. I do myself sometimes!

But the BattleTech universe is literally and figuratively so vast that there are countless “spaces” in the lore for you to design and build your own force, and play with whatever units you want to play. This is a tremendous opportunity for players who care about their fluff and the stories they tell. Do you want to field a down-on-your luck merc unit full of scrappy men and women living on the edge? Maybe you’ll be a little-heard-of elite regiment in the service of some planetary duke belonging to one of the Great Houses? How about my favorite, a marauding band of ruthless pirates?

You can build a force around any other concept or idea you can think of and justify it, or not, to make it “fit” into the lore in any given era. The point is, you don’t have to care about getting an A+ in Lore on your BT report card. You don’t have to spend days and days studying these door-stopper books before you are ready to embark on building the force you want to build. You don’t have to worry about being canon correct to play and enjoy BT.

The Old Guard will respect you, and if that sort of exercise appeals to you then go for it. But don’t let it roadblock you from getting games underway.

Solution #4: Get in the Social Media Groups

The fact of the matter is that BattleTech is always, to a degree, going to be a little frightening in its breadth and depth until you too become an old veteran. But, I have a solution for this too: get on social media and get in the player groups. BattleTech is thriving right now and you won’t have to look very hard to find a bustling group dedicated to BattleTech, be it Classic or Alpha Strike format, or both. And, I give you my word, you will never find another player base that is more aggressively helpful to beginners.

If I were you, and if me-you was on Facebook, I would check out the groups Battletech 3028, Classic Battletech and Battletech Painting and Customs. Whether you need orientation on the rules, help with planning your next purchases, advice on modeling, building your list or any other question you can think of you are sure to get a ton of good advice and lots of answers faster than you can blink.

I’m active on all of those groups regularly, so make sure you say hello if you stop by, and do let me know if you made your way there from this post.

BattleTech for Beginners Does Not Have to be a Bumpy Ride

I’ve got much more to say about BattleTech, and in particular topics that will help newcomers get going on the right foot, but we’ll wrap it here. Take care to remember the advice I gave you above and your experience is going to be a smooth and happy one, and pretty soon you’ll be blazing a trail across the wreckage-choked battlefield in no time.

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