Heavy Metal Menagerie, bonus week (2026 week 17)

At time of writing, I thought last week was the end of the theme but as it turns out I decided to test out my FDM printer's fine detail abilities by printing out a bunch of mechs. Results were...mixed, as you can probably tell. I have a Bambu A1 mostly because it was widely hailed as about as user friendly a printer you can get and I can safely say that it is certainly user friendly. If I knew more about how the thing is configured I could probably dial it in better for this kind of work.

These four are fee sculpts from Matt Mason and are fills for some mechs I didn't have from official sources. Left to right we have Jagermech, Fafnir, Centurion, and Dragon. All four of them have print defects, most notably the missing arm badly camouflaged as battle damage on the Dragon but they painted up just fine otherwise. These guys are out of order in my record so my counts are sus from here until it catches up.

2026 finished mini counter: 94
 

Heavy Metal Menagerie, week 16 (2026 week 16)

This is the last of my force packs from the Battletech Kickstarters, the last week of this mega theme, and the last week for this first leg of this year's goals. As one might have guessed, we have Legendary Mechwarriors III Force Pack and like the last two, I didn't spend all that much time on them. These are all The Bounty Hunter or pals of, the former well-described as the

Dread Pirate Roberts of the Battletech universe. I chose the art variants closest in color to make my job easier and other than a handful of c-bill symbols, they have very few details. The edge highlighting got lost in the two dark green oil washes they got so they don't read as well as I'd hoped. Also, for reasons I don't fully comprehend, the image over there isn't alignable to the top of the frame. Technology; whattayagonndo amirite?

Left to right: Griffin C, Mad Cat S, MAD-8K Marauder II, Marauder,  Loki Mk II A, WHM-9K Warhammer

2026 finished mini counter: 91 

Heavy Metal Menagerie, week 15 (2026 week 15)

This week we have Legendary Mechwarriors II Force Pack and it's weird to have a tanker in there if I'm honest. I am not super well read in Battletech fiction so I only vaguely know who any of these folks are. Like last week, I tried to match the art in the cards which only shows one perspective so probably there's some stuff missing. 

Left to right we have Jeremiah Rose's CGR-3K Charger, Marcus GioAvanti's Archangel, Marcus Barton's DVS-2 Devastator, Abdoun Ricol's Red Hunter 3146, Callandre Kell's SM5 Field Commander

2026 finished mini counter: 85 

Heavy Metal Menagerie, week 13 (2026 week 13)

This week we begin the final stretch of this mega theme. These first four mechs are Eridani Light Horse Hunter Lance and a gift from a pal. Sarna says that they've kept their original "SLDF olive drab" color scheme so that's what I painted. I thought I'd picked a light enough basecoat but it darkened down quite a lot after the oil wash. The cockpits on these could have been a little lighter as they don't read super well on the table. The Tbolt fell off of his smoke trails which was very fortuitous since it meant I could pant them more carefully. Actually, Sarna says it's intentionally configurable. Left to right: Sagittaire, Thunderbolt, Cyclops, Banshee

These guys are the remainder of the non-legendary salvage boxes in my collection and since I was already doing a batch in the olive drab, I painted these guys in the same scheme. I have many Grendels and at least a couple Dire Wolves but the Blood Asp is both new to my painted collection and new to me. Cool though it may be, it's out of my time period (Clan Invasion). Left to right: Blood Asp, Dire Wolf (Daishi), Mongrel (Grendel)

2026 finished mini counter: 76 

Heavy Metal Menagerie, week 12 (2026 week 12)

Have you ever wondered what a heavily militarized phone company might look like? No, me, neither, but Battletech has answered our unasked question. I present to you Comstar Command Level II. Their in-universe color scheme is supposed to be plain white with symbols. For those who aren't painters, white is really hard to paint. You don't just slap a white basecoat on a thing and call it a day if you want something that looks good. 

These guys got a wolf grey basecoat, almost no details, then a typical white drybrush and oil wash. Oil washing black over light colors is always a gamble and despite thinning it way down, these guys dirtied up more than I wanted. I could have taken the time to fix that but I clearly didn't. Despite that, I'm still happy with these.

Left to right:  Mercury, Sentinel, Black Knight, King Crab, Highlander, Exterminator

2026 finished mini counter: 69 

Heavy Metal Menagerie, week 11 (2026 week 11)

This is a Clan Heavy Star and I wanted more green and flame orangey guys to go with my previous Jade Falcon-ish mechs. Week 8's mechs were a little darker than I wanted so I specifically lightened these to match Week 3's mechs a bit more closely. They're still undershaded through the airbrush and I backed off a bit on the oil wash which still got me the shading I wanted and kept the orangey bits brighter than normal. Overall, I think, a good result.

Left to right:  Hunchback IIC, Stone Rhino, Supernova, Marauder IIC, Warhammer IIC.

2026 finished mini counter: 63 

Heavy Metal Menagerie week 10 (2026 week 10)

Another week, another clan star, particularly a Clan Heavy Striker Star. I liked the result from week 4 and wanted to do more guys in that color scheme so these are that. I kind of got that. Unlike most of my mechs, these guys look better close up than on the table where they look a little indistinct. The dry brush edge highlighting worked well but despite being very high contrast, doesn't read super well at arm's length for reasons I don't fully understand. Left to right we have: Ice Ferret (Fenris), Mad Dog (Vulture), Gargoyle (Man O' War), Hellbringer (Loki), and Viper (Dragonfly).

2026 finished mini counter: 58 

Heavy Metal Menagerie week 9 (2026 week 9)

This is an Inner Sphere Direct Fire Lance and they were a goddamn mess. They'd been kicking around my prep table for weeks being overtaken by the last three batches because their mold lines were soooooo bad. So far, these have been the worst of the boxes I've dealt with and as a result, they took way, way too long. For their colors, I wanted to match the Inner Sphere Command Lance from week 52 of last year. In addition to really liking that color scheme, I'd hoped that the high contrast would hide many of the prep shortcomings on these guys and I think it worked. Left to right we have: Orion, Marauder II, Atlas, Crusader. 

2026 finished mini counter: 53 

Heavy Metal Menagerie week 8 (2026 week 8)

Most of the giant batches are behind us now, so I'm grinding through the force packs one box a time. These would be a Clan Command Star and (clearly) did them in a similar color scheme as last week. These guys don't have the wash step, though I did spend more time on their base coat. They aren't quite as nice as last week but I'm not unhappy with where they landed. Not sure what happened with the back shot on these; my shooting has been fairly consistent of late and that is a lousy shot. 

I was excited to get these guys done since they fit some holes in the enemy forces I've been blowing up. Left to right: Mist Lynx (Koshi), Shadow Cat, Dire Wolf (Daishi), Summoner (Thor), and Stormcrow (Ryoken). 

2026 finished mini counter: 49
 

Heavy Metal Menagerie, week 5 (2026 week 5)

Our next installment of mechs is from the main box: A Game of Armored Combat and I'm not sure that's the same SKU as the one currently available from Catalyst. The one I have came with one of the kickstarters and comes with some of my favorite mechs. It also came with a bunch of vehicles but we've already seen them at the end of last year. 

These chonky dudes are (left to right): Thunderbolt, Awesome, Battlemaster, Catapult. Aside from the Awesome which I think is overrated, the other three are some of the mechs I've used the most across all Battletech universe games. In fact, I've got a Thunderbolt and Battlemaster in my Scouring Sands company. I sure hope they survived!

These less chonky dudes are (left to right): Locust, Wolverine, Shadow Hawk, and Commando. I'm using the Locust and Command, too! I painted these guys a while ago now in a flurry of painting exuberance. I have the luxury and resources to play fully painted so when I realized that I wanted four of these guys in my force, well, I knew what I had to do. The oil wash dirtied down the light yellow some on these guys which wasn't intended. It was also (obivously) not fixed.

2026 finished mini counter: 29 

Heavy Metal Menagerie, week 4 (2026 week 4)

This week we have, you guessed it, more mechs. This is a Clan Fire Star including (left to right): Fire Moth (Dasher),  Nova Cat, Warhawk (Maskari), Cougar, Kit Fox (Uller). I had fun with the bright green but I knew that oil washes are more kind to dark colors so I hit these guys with a Reaper Forest Green that seemed fit for the task. These are almost in Clan Wolf livery but again for the record, I can't be bothered to use someone else's color scheme. 

The dark grey on the forest green doesn't read well here and probably could have been lighter. Also probably these guys could use a highlight color of some sort, but the edges look real good.  

2026 finished mini counter: 21
 

Heavy Metal Menagerie, week 3 (2026 week 3)

These guys are Clan Cavalry Star including (left to right): Locust IIC, Griffin IIC, Black Python, Shadow Hawk IIC, and Jenner IIC. Scouring Sands campaign is against the Jade Falcon but I really wanted to do the desert camo so for these guys I picked a bright green for their main color. They aren't specifically in any Jade Falcon livery that I'm aware of because TBH, I can't be bothered to follow someone else's color scheme. 

These guys follow the same basic scheme as most of my mechs featuring heavy use of the airbrush and generally being done in a few hours per batch. The oil wash went on a little heavy which dirtied up the light orange. I could have fixed this but I couldn't be bothred. The Black Python in the middle is new to me and I really like its design. If only it weren't a dirty, dirty clanner. 

2026 finished mini counter: 16

Heavy Metal Menagerie, week 2 (2026 week 2)

For this batch, the Inner Sphere Fire Lance (left to right: Trebuchet, Zeus, Stalker, Longbow), I wanted to experiment with pushing contrast paints through the airbrush. I had it on very good authority that this would result in a tint or a filter but that it wouldn't do the normal contrast paint thing, specifically gather in the recesses to darken and whatnot. I figured if I oversprayed a bit, I'd put down enough contrast paint to a) work like contrast paints usually do, and b) be a lot faster/smoother than doing so with a brush. The culprit: Blood Angels Red, a tone that I don't particularly care for (I like Flesh Tearer's Red a lot better). 

I was kind of right. Overspraying does work, provided you move fast enough to cover the target before things dry. That's a challenge since it dries way faster coming out of an airbrush which isn't really that surprising. The result I got was very patchy and I spent not enough effort cleaning these guys up, though the drybrush and oil wash at the end of the process hide it pretty well. Ultimately, these guys got to a more orange-y destination that I'm not unhappy with.

2026 finished mini counter: 11
 

Heavy Metal Menagarie, week 1 (2026 week 1)

We kick off the new year with a new theme, and if you were paying attention last month, it should be no surprise that it's mechs. These guys are from Battletech Aces Scouring Sands, a few of the support vehicles of which we saw a couple weeks ago. For those not familiar, Aces is a solo or co-op campaign engine for Alpha Strike and I am super stoked to give it a shot. By the time this is posted, I've probably played at least a couple missions, even. 

These hefty guys are (left to right) Thunderbolt IIC, Bane, and Marauder IIC. I wanted to do a camo pattern because I'd never done one. They were basecoated with Pro Acryl Yellow Ochre through the airbrush and the darker splotches played by Pro Acryl Dark Golden Brown were freehanded on. Edges were pulled out by a not-light-enough drybrush and the whole batch was hit with a light oilwash. The oil wash darkened these guys down way more than I was expecting. I could have gone back and fixed that when I put the oil wash on, but, meh, these are dirty clanners and I'm fine if their mechs look dirty too.

These other dudes (left to right) are Howler, Summoner (Thor), Rifleman IIC, and Locust IIC. The Bane and Howler are new to me but the Scouring Sands campaign is happening after all the Battletech I'm familiar with. Notably, I stopped playing around the time I went off to college way back in the last milennium. 

2026 finished mini counter: 7

A thing a week 2025, week 52

We end the year with more Battletech, this time mechs. These guys go surprisingly quickly, especially now that I'm dialing in on a better scheme. These are roughly in the order they were painted 

This first four in wolf grey is the Inner Sphere Battle Lance including four of my favorite anime-not-quite-pseudo-licensed mechs. They're painted in an almost Macross-like scheme which didn't really work since they're not quite detailed in that way. I'm finding the details on these molds a little soft and the mold lines are godawful so I haven't had quite the normal edge highlighting fidelity that I usually enjoy. I also tried to force an oil wash to work here and I don't think it quite landed. Probably the Payne's Grey details are too dark in addition to the black details and I really should have known better. Left to right we have Warhammer, Rifleman, Phoenix Hawk and Wasp.

These next guys are the Inner Sphere Command Lance and instead of basecoating with the airbrush I hit them with a slight zenithal (base grey primer with sketchy white primer on top--I screwed up my mixing and it really performed badly) and a coat of Akhelian Green Contrast Paint as a test. I like this color quite a lot and I've used it quite a lot but it performed not very well in this application. The big flat areas probably warranted a thinning down and I ended up doing a lot of cleanup after the fact. Also of note, my color choice was compositionally good but the specific paints I used were really transparent and the four-ish coats of each made the detailing really tedious. These guys took the oil wash a lot better and I was a lot more diligent in cleaning up pooling on the big light grey panels. I think they look pretty good. Left to right we have Marauder, Valkyrie, Stinger and Archer.

These blue and orangey guys are the Inner Sphere Recon Lance and probably they're the best of the bunch. They're zenithaled better than the last and I hit them with a basecoat of a mix of Pro Acryl Blue Transparent and Pro Acryl Black Transparent. These were drybrushed twice after that before adding the detailing which I suppose wasn't strictly necessary but I did it anyway. Orange and other details came next. After that I spent a lot of time getting the edge highlights on the orangey bits which looks good, but was very tedious. I've got a better solution for this now, but that's all part of the journey. The last step was a light oil wash which worked well on these guys' darker color scheme. Left to right we have Firestarter, new-to-me Spector, Javelin and Ostscout. I'm pretty happy with these guys.

Continuing my "I spent too long on edge highlighting despite the fact that I like the result" we have the Inner Sphere Striker Lance and I was super stoked for the Blacktron color scheme. I was pretty sure I'd have a rough time with the oil wash on the yellow in addition to the edge highlighting on the same yellow and I was right on both counts. These guys had some shallow armor plates which make them non-ideal for any kind of edge highlighting and there was no way to make the off white edges distinct enough because there just plain wasn't much color value going up. These got mostly where I wanted them and I think they look pretty good but all of the edge highlighting continued to be tedious. The cockpits came out especially well here because I spent quite a lot of time on them. Left to right we have Wolfhound, Jenner, Panther, and Blackjack.

For these red guys, otherwise known as the Inner Sphere Urban Lance, I got them half right. These were zenithaled with the airbrush and I hit them with Contrast Paint Blood Angels Red, a color that I don't super like. I spent a lot of time cleaning up the resulting blotchiness. These guys are big and my pot (maybe all pots of this color?) was really thick. This makes it really hard to properly extend the wet edge and is one of my big gripes about Contrast Paints in general. The grey bits were done next and the whole thing was drybrushed with an ancient pot of Reaper flesh tone that I bought at the turn of the milennium. This took the tedium out of the edge highlighting and meant that I could vary the weight which is nice. They look good on the table but if you look closely, you'll see all the corners I cut. Left to right we have Victor, Enforcer (late model, I think), Hunchback and Raven.

For these dudes I finally got it all put together. These are the non-dupe clan mechs I got out of salvage boxes in the kickstarter. I could have painted them in proper clan colors but TBH, I can't be bothered. These guys were simply primed with the airbrush and then basecoated with the airbrush (Pro Acryl Dark Neutral Grey, if you care). Details were picked out, they were drybrushed, and finished with the typical oil wash. They were done more or less in a day (sans drying time and whatnot) but they are both high drama and low effort and came together in a few hours all told. They are left to right: Adder A (Puma), Mongrel (Grendel), Timberwolf (Mad Cat), Dire Wolf (Daishi), Mad Dog (Vulture), and Nova (Black Hawk)

Last but not least, a polarizing mech if ever there was one. This little trash can looking dude is the Urbanmech and I have a love/hate thing with them, particularly that I love to hate them despite it being an OK mech. It was painted as a batch with the Striker Lance which is probably obvious and I have the same critique for this guy as for those. The blending on the cockpit doesn't show super well in these shots which is sad because I thought it came out pretty good. A lot of these battletech figs have recessed cockpits which is a nice detail but it can be challenging to paint. This particular guy came out way better than it had any right to and we're going to end the year on him because that seems appropriate.

2025 finished mini count: 260 

A thing a week 2025, week 51

Continuing our low-effort and hopefully high-drama Battletech figs, we have a mess of tanks and other vehicles. I wanted to paint these really fast and they more or less were really fast. Like our aerospace fighters from last week, they were primed and base-coated with my cheapest of airbrushes only to be drybrushed and oil washed after that. Also of note, I usually have a pileup at the end of the year because I tend to work a week or two ahead so I have something to post if I'm busy or out of town or something. This year I've got a similar pileup but only because I'm geeked about painting Battletech figs and they're going really fast. 

First up we have missile carriers in a military green with a very light drybrush to edge highlight and one or two coats of a light oil wash. These guys are high damage, low survivability so I painted them in the least eye catching colors I could find. The base coat was a Pro Acryl through the airbrush and probably if I used these more often rather than a Speed Paint or Contrast Paint I'd have fewer blotchiness and gloss issues. Note that these came with extra turrets so you could have four of either should you so desire. The standies they're on are a work in progress.

Next up we have a mess of tanks. I'm always a little shaky on the non-scary ones so from left to right I think we've got: Galleon, Vedette, Manticore, Shrek, and Demolisher. The triple-PPC Shrek tank should not be confused with the early 90s ogre of the same name. The guys on the right are legit scary and I've lost many-a-battlemech to the inimitable double-AC/20 Demolisher. The semi-glossy greenish tanks are basecoated with multiple coats of Daler Rowney inks that I keep trying to use in this way but keep disappointing me. The arctic-themed tanks were base coated with Vallejo Game Air Wolf Grey which is one of my favorite cool off-whites. For these guys I wanted to push the light oil washes I've been using to see if they'd play nice with light base coats which kind of worked. I got the panel lines for nearly free but where it pooled unhelpfully on the big flat areas, it really looks bad. Still tuning this step. This shot also unexpectedly dark but I couldn't be bothered to re-balance it. 

How about some VTOLs? These are the H-7 Warrior last seen being blown up in MW5:Mercs. These probably could have been a little fancier but the details were a little soft and I really made a mess of the mold lines. These guys helpfully come with two sets of stands, the tall ones shown here and some very short ones that make them look like they're landed. That's a really nice touch and I love it when game companies do such things. These guys are from the Recon and Hunter Lances and probably I should have shot them with their box mates.

These guys are the rest of the Recon and Hunter Lances. From left to right we have the Ontos Heavy Tank, the Behemoth Heavy Tank, and the Skulker Wheeled Scout Tank. These aren't tanks I'm super familiar with, though the Behemoth shows up occasionally in the HBS Battletech game. The Ontos carries a stupid number of medium lasers which is endearing for a tank. These guys had some pretty rough mold lines only some of which I handled acceptably. Probably the dark grey ones could have used a heavier dry brushing at the end. One weird thing I noticed about these is that they generally have either too many, or too big cockpit or windows. Usually windows are less armored than, I dunno, the armor, so you'd think they'd make them smaller.

Last up we have some rando hovertanks. The little guys on the left are the Savanna Master from one of the gajillion salvage boxes I got from the kickstarters and the guys on the right are Fulcrum from the Aces: Scouring Sands box. I ordered the Hunter and Recon Lances in addition to the Aces box (and some other stuff without minis) and I really wanted all of the vehicles to be done. So here they are! The Fulcrum have a fun red cockpit that sadly aren't visible here with the high angle shot. 

2025 finished mini counter: 241

A thing a week 2025, week 50

And now for something completely different. My love of all things Battletech is very well documented at this point so several years ago when Catalyst Game Labs did their Mercenaries Kickstarter, I was all in. When they subsequently did their Clan Invasion Kickstarter...I was also all in. 

All four of these guys were add-ons to the two kickstarters and I painted them mostly with the airbrush. I haven't painted many mechanical figs, vintage Mekton figs notwithstanding, so part of this week's effort was trying to sort out better ways to paint them. Also of note, I have a lot of mechs to paint and probably this is going to be a journey. After the airbrush and some details, I did a heavy black oil wash like I've used many times. On a couple of these you can probably tell where I tried (badly) to edge highlight some of the panels. Unfortunately, these sculpts are a little soft and I didn't have the patience to do so consistently. 

The guys on top are Shilone Aerospace fighters, the guys on the bottom are filthy Clan Visigoth OmniFighters. They're bigger than I thought they'd be which means that my normal microspace Lego stand-ins probably aren't going to be retired anytime soon. Ultimately I rushed these and it shows. The dark is probably too dark and that was not helped by the heavy oil wash. We'll see next week some improvements which probably would have helped here. I do like these guys but I ended up with a worse result because I'd sold myself on doing them really fast. That's how you learn, I guess. 

What are these guys? I'm a little shaky on hovertanks but I think the guys on the left are left to right: Pegasus, Maxim, and Condor. I've mostly only blown these up; I've never needed to field any. They're a little shinier in this shot than they read in person. I expected the light oil wash to flat them down a little more than it did but I'm not unhappy with where the landed.

2025 finished mini counter: 207