A Lance of Locusts (or should that be a swarm?)

After the success I had with printing my mini-mecha for WeaselTech, I wanted to try a few normal scaled BattleMechs.  I've always fancied having some extra fast recon units so some Locusts seemed a good choice, especially with the more dynamic poses you can get with 3D printing.  They are also one-part, so gone are the days of fiddling with small metal parts, trying to hold them straight while the glue sets!

Locusts!

I bought a load of lipped hex bases from eM4 Miniatures in their recent sale. I filled these with Wilko brown wood filler and superglued the Locusts in place after sanding their feet smooth.  A sprinkle of small rocks and some fine sand/brown tile grout gave a good texture.  Wilko grey primer always gives a good undercoat.  I didn't spend much time on any of these, just dobbed the paint on for some rough camo schemes and an appropriate black or sepia ink wash.

LCT-1M

The LCT-1M carries a pair of LRM-5 launchers and a medium laser and virtually no armour.  It needs to rely on its speed for survival and when I introduce a new player to BattleTech, I'm thinking of 2 or 3 training missions emphasizing different aspects of the game.  A training mission with 2 LCT-1Ms sparring with LRMs at long range could be interesting, wouldn't need many hits to disable the enemy but keeping moving would be the key.  This is a simple green, khaki & red-brown camo scheme.

LCT-1M

The advanced LCT-1VB carries a small pulse laser and medium pulse laser in each arm as well as the torso medium laser, plus ferro-fibrous armour, endo-steel chassis, XL engine and double heat sinks.  I just think it looks cool, so I've printed 2 of these.  The first is a green and grey colour scheme.

LCT-1VB

The second LCT-1VB is a sort-of re-creation of the basic green colour scheme I used on my bendy plastic Locust from the Battletech starter set I got back in the early 1990's.

LCT-1VB

 *Updated* - I dug out my old, strutting LCT-1V for a quick comparison photograph.  The new green is a bit more subdued, but that's just the change in my painting style over almost 30 years.

 

Old & new.

The standard Locust's machine guns are replaced with SRM-2 lauchers on the LCT-1S. It also loses a little armour compared to the standard Locust, but if the pilot is lucky, the extra, longer-ranged damage they dish out will compensate.  This is just a khaki base coat, sepia wash, khaki drybrush and a bone drybrush to finish.

LCT-1S

 Cockpit canopies were all painted with my 1980's GW Enchanted blue, with a faint highlight painted on that seems to have completely vanished in the photographs, but you can see it in real life.

LCT-1S

I shall have to try printing something bigger another day, perhaps some Shadowhawks and Wolverines to supplement the 2 bendy plastic ones from the old boxed game.  As always, you can see the print lines up close, but from 12" away you can't really see them.  I'd say it's far less of an issue than the bad mould lines that are almost impossible to hide on some of the metal 'Mechs I've bought over the years.