As you can see, I’m still learning the ropes. But here’s a front and back picture of Battletech miniature painting attempt #2, an Exterminator:
The lighting in the photos is not the greatest; in real life, there’s a slightly more prominent metallic sheen, and there’s some dark-brown undercarriage coloring visible. (You’ll just have to take my word for it.) I like this paint job a bit better than my previous effort, and I learned a few more things about miniature painting in the process.
As for the Exterminator itself, I’ve always thought its oddly bulky torso and shambling gait looked kinda cool. Reading around on the web revealed that it’s usually painted a shiny silver; the body here is silver in color, but I wanted its sparkly shine to be peeking out from beneath a heavy layer of battlefield smoke and grime.
Next up for painting is, I think, a Zeus, another iconic Battlemech. I think I’ll go with some brighter and cleaner colors this time; both the Dragon and the Exterminator are pretty grungy and washed-out looking, and I’m ready for a change of pace. Practice makes perfect, or so they say….
by 
I like this one a lot better, too. This one looks excellent. Nice work.
I know the Dragon and the Zeus… but I haven’t seen stats for an Exterminator. Which Tech Readout covers it? (Looks like Large Laser, Med Laser, 5-8-5 move, maybe more weapons on the wrists, and better armor than a Phoenix Hawk… just by looking at the mini.)
Thanks for the kinds words! (And thanks for the link, too! I really enjoy your blog.) Any suggestions you have for improving my painting are welcome 🙂
There are (I think) at least two variants of the Exterminator, but the one pictured above is from TR-2750. It’s 65 tons, 6-9-6 movement, 1 LRM-10, 4 medium lasers (2 on each arm), 1 small laser and an AMS. From what I remember using it in Battletech games, it doesn’t stand up very well in a straight fight against other mechs in its weight class. But according to the flavor text in the TR, it’s built as an infiltrator/assassin type mech for taking down commanders and specific targets and is not usually found in standard battlefield groups.
Personally, I always questioned whether it has the firepower required to down a typical politician’s or commander’s mech quickly. But the idea of a speedy, stealthy heavy mech is a cool one.
Actually, it does look like a Heavy Duty version of the Assassin.
It always bothered me that there was an apparent lack of consistency between the designs, the pictures, and the flavor text. For instance, LRMS should do more damage and have less ammo to be consistent with the old Robotech cartoons. Also… Wasps, Stingers, and Locusts could never contribute very much in a game. (Now Javelins… they’ve taken down quite few heavy ‘mechs in their time…. A volley of 12 SRM’s to the back is never a good thing.)
Agreed on all counts. It sometimes seemed like the artist, the flavor text writer, and the mech designer were working on different mechs entirely! I also used to get irritated at inconsistency in the way certain weapons were visually portrayed–a PPC on one mech would be big enough to occupy its entire arm in one picture, and on a different mech the PPC would be portrayed as a tiny snub-nosed gun mounted in the torso. Ah well, I’ll chalk it all up to artistic license, or something.
One of the problems with light mechs like the ones you mention, and also with very specialized mechs, is that the roles for which they are designed don’t make very thrilling games. For instance, certain 20-ton mechs are mostly designed to serve as scouts; but it’s not much fun to play out a purely “scouting” scenario. In my games, that usually meant that we either pretty much never used those mechs, or when we did, they were put into combat roles they weren’t historically designed for, and quickly destroyed. At least, that’s how I explained the presence of several mechs that didn’t contribute much to the game.
I thought the “Battleforce” games added some usefulness back to these specialized mechs by showing their use in a strategic scenario; but my friends and I never used them much in tactical-scale games.
Pingback: The Missing ‘Mechs Revised: The Rifleman « Jeffro’s Car Wars Blog
I like the color scheme and I agree that the Exterminator is a visually appealing design. The lines look kinda apish. Which doesn’t fit the game mechanics, as others have said.
Thanks for the comment, Jeff! The ape-ish aspect at least gives it a sense of personality, which is something that a lot of mechs, especially in the post-Clan era, seem to lack. I could never tell half of those Omnimechs apart from each other…