Battletech painting: Clan Nova Cat Alpha Galaxy and 17th Avalon Hussars

Here are my completed Clan Nova Cat Alpha Galaxy mechs. I re-based them from the larger (non-standard) 40mm hex bases to the standard 33mm bases (you can see the old bases in the previous post): while I feel that the larger mechs look too cramped on the standard sized bases, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to decorate the larger bases as mini-terrain with various interesting elements, in the end I decided to use standard sized bases to make gameplay easier. All of this group were 3D-printed miniatures I bought off Etsy.

First up is the Turkina. Besides the King Crab, this is the only other model with a nice flat top surface for painting, and I knew it would look good with the camo pattern for Clan Nova Cat's Alpha Galaxy: the board surface allows for a swathe of stars to cover the top.

Next is the Ebon Jaguar/Cauldron Born, one of my favourite mechs in terms of looks. I chose to base this group on rough terrain, painted black with pink and yellow highlights to try and convey the sense of glowing hot rocks. It didn't work out as I planned, but I'll let this sit for a while before thinking about how to change it.

The Timberwolf/Mad Cat is a classic "poster-boy" mech for Battletech, so I had to have one. 

I like the pose in this model of the Shadowcat: nimble and suggesting movement and dynamics. 

Finally, a Huntsman, a classic Clan Nova Cat staple.

I also re-based my lance of 17th Avalon Hussars.

3D printed miniatures are generally great, with a few problems. This Rifleman model came in multiple pieces, to allow for posing options, which while I appreciate, did make it very difficult to assemble: it may not be obvious from the photo, but it's held together by excessive amounts of superglue and I had to drill and pin the arms to get them stable enough for use as a gaming piece.  

The Centurion was 3D printed in one monolithic bloc, which was good: however, the torso to hip connection looks completely unrealistic - the slanted connection is something that only makes sense in a digital model but looks odd in a physical model that a viewer expects to obey known laws of material physics. That small gripe aside, this was a great model to paint, and the Centurion is a classic Federated Suns mech.

This Wolverine is the only plastic model from CGL in this lance, from the AGOAC box set. I chose to paint up the 17th Avalon Hussars because of the easy yet high contrast scheme (grey with red highlights). 

Finally, a Phoenix Hawk. This 3D printed miniature was very frustrating to assemble - both the arms and legs came in two parts, which made for great posing options, but the small contact surface meant glueing them was frustratingly difficult. In the end, I drilled and pinned the arms and the legs, and ended up with a standard pose because the more dynamic ones would have been very fragile and unstable - so despite the options available in theory because of the multipart model, in practice the pose ended up with something that might as well have been printed in one monolithic bloc. The slight slant to the pose is not an attempt on my part to introduce some character to the miniature: it is because I couldn't find a stable position, and the model settled into that one after several attempts at glueing and pinning, and I decided to leave good enough alone and let it be!