Death by a thousand laser cuts!

o/

With the local semi-resurrection of Classic Battletech in progress, I needed some forces to replace what was lost in my grand sell of some years back. All that survived that was a lone Maxim IFV, and my proxy infantry platoon (or company if I use each base as a platoon, which makes more sense on a hex map) using old EPIC IG. Lets be honest, when the minis are that small, does it really matter? The Maxim & conventional infantry are usable by everybody, and just about as useless to all as well. The Maxim has some nice variants though, whereas conventional infantry is more or less 'filler'.

Not wanting to just field the same sort of tank heavy formations as my previous CBT armies had, my initial purchase was instead a swarm of Clan Protomechs (a cross between Elemental infantry & baby battlemechs).

Left to right: Roc, Minotaur, Centaur Protomechs

 The basic unit for the Clans is a 'star' (squad) containing 5 'points' (units). For protomechs, 5 = 1 point. I have 10 Minotaurs & 5 Rocs (with 25 ER medium lasers between them, hence the post title), and 5 Centaurs (which have LRMs, SRMs, and an ER micro [useless] laser each). I'm thinking of them as the Battletech version of the Chinese human wave assault. For the 5th point, I figure I can use either a platoon of conventional infantry in the Maxim, or my token mech, the Corvis.

In general I don't buy 'ugly' mechs, and in that regard, the Corvis is questionable at best. However as it was designed as a close infantry/armor support mech, I figured it fit best. Also it would probably serve as a private kind of hell for the pilot to be the star commander of a 'combined arms' star. Not even the Hells Horses who are my favorites of the Clans like to mix Stars in such a way.

While the Horses aren't too fond of Protomechs aside from the minotaur, I'll be painting them as the Omega Galaxy, which is formed primarily from former Clan Wolf & Ice Hellion warriors. So a more exotic allotment of protos ought to be fine. It also makes the Corvis act as something of a minder to keep the rest of them in line with the Horses' doctrines.

 Anyways, here's my little army (sans maxim & infantry). Not much storage space is required (one of battletech's virtues). I plan to get a single Inner sphere mech lance as well for when we play pre-Clan invasion era games. I've been bouncing around various ideas, but basically I'm looking for  mechs that have been around a while & thus have a multitude of variants to fit whatever time period we're playing, as well as to allow for some variety with the least number of models.

So far I've settled on a new sculpt Stalker (surprise) which has always been my favorite mech, and will be my lance leader. A Cicada to run as scout, in much the same as I used to use Locusts (except the Cicada can mount standard & ER PPCs), and am currently leaning towards a pair of Dragons/Grand Dragons (same mini for both types) which I am also fond of. Previously I had the old Stalker sculpt & the rest in the shitty plastics of the Total Warfare set, so none of those will be exact replacements of what I had before.