"Mercenary captains are either capable men or they are not."

 Goblin's Paladins, a small mercenary company operating in the Periphery, has recently completed a re-arm and re-fit, allowing us to see part of its Order of Battle.

Goblin's Paladins - Command and Fire Lances

I have three factions planned for my Battletech collection. The first, 1st Canopian Cuirassiers of the Magistcracy of Canopus, we've already seen, including in action against Periphery mercenaries and pirates. The second are my mercenary company, now with two lances finished. I intend to add a third lance at some point to give it some better bite, but for now:

Elements of 1st Company, mercenary company "Goblin's Paladins", c.3067-3085

Goblin's Paladins - Command Lance

+ COMMAND LANCE - PV87 +

• Axeman AXM-1N - PV33
• Commando COM-2D - PV17
• Bushwacker BSW-X1 - PV33
• Nightstar NSR-9J - PV51

Axeman AXM-1N
/callsign/: Goblin

Look, I love the Axeman. Ever since I saw a glimpse of the cartoon at my aunt's place in the mid-90s, I've been in love with giant robots with melee weapons. It fucken slaps. So when the new range was coming out and one of the boxes included an Axeman, I said to myself, "That's me. That's the 'Mech I'm piloting."

The camo scheme is based on the scheme I use in the computer game and I am desperately unhappy with how it came out, but life's tough in the big city. It passes the three-foot test, so we'll all just live with ourselves.

Commando COM-2D
/callsign/: Bone

I bought this guy to round out the Command lance, which requires a fairly specific spread of weights. But when I decided on painting him based on Charon's Children, it did give me the opportunity to freehand a sick skull, so I'm relatively happy with him.

Bushwacker BSW-X1
/callsign/: Rake

I wanted to experiment with oil weathering, so Rake's Bushwacker was painted with a simple white, then hit with streaking grim and rubbed away. It didn't work perfectly, but it does look battered and grimy, so good practice.

Nightstar NSR-9J
/callsign/: Sharkbait

Nightstar 'Mechs are terrifying beasts of total destruction, but mostly I just wanted to practice painting freehand shark's teeth. The rest of the colour scheme was just so that the teeth would pop - plus, it's called a Nightstar, right? what do you want from me

chomp

Goblin's Paladins - Fire Lane

+ FIRE LANCE - PV132 +

• Catapult CPLT-C1 - PV32
• Archer ARC-2R - PV39
• Cataphract CTF-3D - PV31
• UrbanMech UM-R60 / UM-R69 - PV11 / PV19

Catapult CPLT-C1
/callsign/: Turncoat

The Catapult was painted a few years ago (wait, that can't be right!), intending it to be able to blend with this planned mercenary force or with the Canopians - hence his gold skin, and also why the photo doesn't bear the marks of my camera's degradation like the rest of these photos.

Detail shots.  Note the replacement leg, possibly from stores intended for the Fronc Reach.

Archer ARC-2R
/callsign/: Hellhound

This sculpt is intended to be Morgan Kell's Archer, so I've kept his unit colours. Why Hellhound has left the Hounds and joined my unit we may perhaps never know.

Cataphract CTF-3D
/callsign/: Freelance

Given that historical cataphracts were heavy cavalry akin to western knights, I thought the colours of the chivalrous-sounding 'Swordsworn' might be appropriate and fun to paint - and yes, they are. Freelance was obviously relatively junior to Swordsworn before he went freelance, given the proportion of blue on his armour, which again raises questions.

UrbanMech UM-R60 / UM-R69
/callsign/: Croft

I like to think of Croft as a grizzled old homesteader with his tiny 'Mech and decades of experience, refusing to pilot the larger - and, frankly, better - 'Mechs in the unit. Possibly he still has his farm on some worthless backwater, possibly he's lost it and is bitter. At any rate, I intend to give him ridiculous piloting stats for his crummy 'Mech and have loads of fun in games. I may upgrade it to a UM-R69, which gives it the sniper categorisation and becomes actually effective, while still maintaining WYSIWYG.

The colours are just based on some urban camo designs I found online; it's an UrbanMech, after all.

Most likely the next addition to the Battletech forces will be some Clan Sea Fox, but it could be another lance of Paladins. We'll see..

'This Machine Stomps Fascists', © 2022, EnbyKaiju