My Clan Jade Falcon Cluster Project is my biggest Battletech undertaking. Lets start with a how the clans are arranged.
| Rank | Unit | Consists of |
|---|---|---|
| Warrior | N/A | N/A |
| Squad Commander | Squad | 5 Warriors |
| Point Commander | Point | 1 ‘Mech, 2 Aerospace Fighters, 2 Combat Vehicles, 5 Elementals, or 5 squads. |
| Star Commander | Star | 5 Points |
| Nova[55] | 1 ‘Mech Star and 1 Elemental Star (10 Points) | |
| Star Captain[56] | Binary | 2 Stars (10 Points) |
| Trinary | 3 Stars (15 Points) | |
| Super Nova | 2 ‘Mech Stars and 2 Elemental Stars (20 Points) | |
| Super Nova Trinary | 3 ‘Mech Stars and 3 Elemental Stars (30 Points) | |
| Star Colonel | Cluster | 2-5 Binaries, Trinaries, Super Novas and/or Super Nova Trinaries (20 to 150 Points) |
| Galaxy Commander | Galaxy | 2-5 Clusters (40 to 750 Points) |
Thanks to www.sarna.net for the above chart. You can find out more over there, with any of the links above.
As Jade Falcon uses all the unit sizes we could be between 20 and 150 units, I think as it stands now, I will be doing some 55 mechs and 20 Elemental Stands. That may change depending on how inspired I get.
I am not basing this force of any Cluster that we know of from the Jade falcon source book, that is because I got all the mechs for this force so it fits with Battle of Tukayyid.
My force is made up of four Trinaries, and a Cluster command. I will call them Alpha, Beta, Charlie, Delta. If I had fighters I would call them Echo. It will consist of 55 mechs and 10 Elemental stands, this may change to 30 Elemental Stands depending on my timeline. This will give me 60 Jade Falcon mechs. Of all this I am short 1 mech for this project, though I have ordered a mech it is going to take time to get here
It doesn’t seem like it is that many figures, until you see it all on the table.
Paints
For this entire project the greens are going to be done with Privateer Press (P3) and Scale 75 (S75) Paints, the colours used are:
Greens
P3 – Gnarls Green
P3 – Iosan Green
S75 – SFG-23 Slimer Green
Yellows
P3 – Ember Orange
P3 – Heartfire
S75 – SC-40 Sol Yellow
P3 – Sulfric Yellow
I use a lot of other colours for lenses etc too many to list.
Decals
While I have all the tools to produce my own decals including a printer that can print white, I don’t have time to do the art work, I really would love to do a big A4 sheet of decals for the unit markings, each of the Trinary or Binaries, but I need time and I am not that good at art work.
So I have gone with decals from Fighting Pirannaha Graphics.
Galaxy Command Star
The command is made up of the following Mechs.
Dashi (Dire Wolf) Prime Config
Masakari (Warhawk) Prime Config
Man O` War (Gargoyle) Prime Config
Thor (Summoner) A Config
Thor (Summoner) Prime Config
That is a solid looking Star. In Battletech term’s I am not sure I will ever use them all at the same time, as it is just too many BV to get a game done in a reasonable time frame.
Dashi
With the Dashi I did some mods to the arms, I had thought to 3D print some extra arms for the Alt Configs then use magnets like I have in these arms so they could be changed around if needed, but I have only gotten to the magnets in the arms. This 100 ton badboy has to the be the leader, he really does. The decals on the legs looks great, however doing such a large area that is curved is really hard on the decal sheet and I had to do it more than once.
It looks like a tractor and only Case International or something, and I like it. I really should have made this mech the commanders mech as this mech is really a Jade Falcon mech. As you can see I went a half leg on this one with the decals It worked better, but I am not sure that I am happy with it.
Man O` War
It is the name really, it says alot what this mech is about, for an 80 tonn mech it is quite fast at 5 – 8, good but not great fire power. No heat issues, and like most of the clan stuff that went to the battle of Tukayyid, relies on ammo.
Thor A Config
I have done alot of arm swaps with this entire army, it took time and effort but I think it is worth it. This mech suffers from the same as the Man O` War. Ammo.. The Gauss rifle has only 8 rounds, 8 rounds…. These two mechs say alot on why the clans assault on Tukayyid stalled. When you have the best lasers but take only Ammo consuming weapons, and don’t have secure supply lines.
Thor Prime
This mechs is what I would like to refer to as a 1st gen metal. You can see the size different between this and the Thor A. In fact all the newer mechs look bigger and chunkier than the rest. I love the new stuff. But this is throw back to when mechs were smaller…
That is all the mechs for the Command. I love the look of the green that is a P3 paint and on top of that I also used some Scale75 greens. I think this will end up being tedious but as I am Corona Virus Lock down, I best get cracking cause I am going to need all the time.
What is next?….. The Alpha Trinary
Next up is the Alpha Trinary consisting of 3 star’s. If I have missed anything feel free to comment below.
