Monday, March 19, 2018

Microworld tanks for Battletech

o/

I've always been a fan of the stats for Battletech's Goblin medium tank. The Goblin's been in use for longer than anyone can recall (seriously, in the fluff there's no start date for production), and used to varying degrees by just about every non-Clan faction. For the succession wars, its easily the best el cheapo MBT available, the only problem is, they never made a model for the original goblin, rather the mini is for the later redesign.

Here they are on a 1" grid.

Luckily, in an image search online, I at some point came across Microworld Games, a small company in New Jersey that makes pseudo OGRE tanks among other things.

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ATTENTION Steve Jackson Fans: THESE ARE THE MINIS YOU'RE LOOKING FOR!!! Unless of course you like paying outrageous ebay prices (cardstock OGREs? Wut?) for ancient minis..

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Anyways, I ordered a 3-pack of their New Terra MBTs , which with shipping came to pretty much the same price as a blister-pack of (2) Bulldogs from Iron Wind Metals (before they add shipping). So, a good deal in my book!

Being 15 tons lighter than a Manticore, they look to be just about right in size.

The casts are excellent and the minis look really good! Their scale is a close approximation of what the Goblin ought to be sized I think (though to be fair, scale of miniatures is the battletech miniature range's most consistently inconsistent flaw). They have a smaller light tank that I think I'll order in the near future to use as proxy Scorpion light tanks (especially as I loathe the actual Scorpion mini).

The gate on the rear hull, it just the right size (after being scraped flat) to look like a ramp for the tank's troop compartment. 

I probably ought to have gotten those at the same time as my proxy Goblins to save on shipping, but I opted not too given I didn't know of anyone who's bought their minis (and as a user of photoshop, I can assure you that photos lie!!), not to mention hobby funds provided by selling my little bit of Warmahordes stuff on ebay were limited. But, as I'm happy with this purchase, there's no longer any worry about product quality.

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