1st Somerset Strikers - upgraded with new clan technology

 Although during the Battletech animated series there was a TON of repetitive re-use of the same few mechs over an over again (I see you Centurion, Wolfhound, and Mauler) after a few successful raids and some intel gathering Major Steiner's 1st Somerset Strikers were rewarded for their efforts with some newer tech that was uniquely their own.

Ciro Ramirez had been captured by the clans and had his Wolfhound shot out from under him anyway.  Valten Ryder had lost his father's Centurion (it's okay, there's tons of those things laying around).  And even Major Steiner briefly lost his beloved Axman.  FedCom came through with some new mechs along with a two battle armour suits for their pilots to use while on the ground.  The only hold over from the original lance was Captain Hawkins who continues to perform his intel/recon functions from his 90 ton Mauler.

Major Steiner received an awesome new Awesome assault mech.  I had to re-watch a few episodes online to remind myself that the Awesome was in the patchy tan and brown camo used by FedCom forces and was not done in the colours of Steiner's previous Axman (not sure why I remembered it that way).

Valten Ryder got a Bushwacker a mech I have to confess I know next to nothing about.  I was basically getting out of Batteltech when the Bushwacker made it's first appearances back in the day so I'm really unfamiliar with it outside of the animated series.  The one thing that strikes me looking at the Bushwacker is given it's body shape and somewhat odd arm design and positioning I'm kind of curious if back in the day at the graphic design phase it was intended to be a new land-air-mech.  No idea, just speculating.

In addition to upgrading two of their mechs FedCom came up with two designs based on the Clan Elemental armour; the Sloth, and the Infiltrator.  The Sloth has always struck me as kind of a neat design.  Whereas the Infiltrator (and the Clan Elemental suits) always seemed like a fairly generic take on sci-fi power armour, the Sloth feels far more unique and distinctive and looks more like something that belongs firmly in the Battletech universe.

I've really enjoyed painting this small characterful force.  I still have four more models to finish for the Strikers themselves and then I'll be reviewing the scenarios before painting a bunch of Wolfhounds and Centurions to fill out their attached allies for some of the later scenarios.

On a personal note HUGE thanks to my friend Nick from Breaker Press Games for getting me the Sloth and the Infiltrator.  That stuff is hard to come by up here in Canada.  Nick has his own sci-fi miniature line and publishes a ton a great content for Dungeon Crawl Classics.  Please check out his work at: https://breakerpress.storenvy.com/   

And once again if you're looking for Battletech rules and models please support your friendly local game store!

Thanks for checking in.

-Jay