“The Shadow Cat Is A Heavily-Armed And Manoeuvrable Medium OmniMech…”

“…Developed by Clan Nova Cat to replace the Ice Ferret in the early 31st century.”

This 1:285 scale pre-built plastic model of a Shadow Cat is produced by “Catalyst Game Labs” and can be found together with a Dire Wolf, Summoner, Stormcrow, and Mist Lynx in the company’s “Battletech: Clan Command Star” boxed set. All the pre-assembled miniatures also come with an assortment of MechWarrior pilot and Alpha Strike cards depicting various colour schemes. But as I plan to use this particular sculpt as a Hawker class British War Walker for an upcoming Weird War Two campaign using some homemade rules, I decided to go with a predominantly light brown palette.

Employing the weight-saving technology of “an Endo Steel internal structure”, the 35mm tall figure was initially given a double undercoat of “Vallejo” Earth and shaded in “Citadel” Agrax Earthshade. It was then dry-brushed using (more) “Vallejo” Earth with a softly-bristled make-up blusher brush, and had its rather prominent cockpit’s windows ‘picked out’ with a dab of “Citadel” Abaddon Black.

"Americans will always fight for liberty."

So as to add a bit of interest to the rather bleak-pigmented model I decided to tie its colour scheme in better with that of the Hawker Hurricane, and resultantly identified a few ‘points of interest’ on both its arms and legs which could be ‘picked out’ using a combination of “Vallejo” Heavy Green and “Citadel” Biel-Tan Green. I later gave these areas a careful dry-brush of (more) “Vallejo” Heavy Green to help highlight the sculpt’s impressive details.

I also applied some “Vallejo” Gunmetal, and later a splattering of “Citadel” Nuln Oil, to the Shadow Cat’s formidably sized Gauss Rifle, its two Extended Range (ER) Medium Lasers, some air vents and knee-joints. Lastly, I dug out one of the smallest Union Flag transfers I could find within my collection of “Decal Details” and placed it just above the medium-sized mech’s cock-pit. I had also hoped to apply a roundel or two to the war walker, but simply couldn’t find any suitable locations on its Ferro-Fibrous armour.

"Battletech" WIPs - This Adder and Shadow Cat are currently having some base layers applied

I have however, managed to finish working on second plastic model of a Stinger to use as a Curtiss-Class American War Walker. This “Catalyst Game Labs” figure can be found inside the company’s ““Battletech: Inner Sphere Command Lance” boxed set, and was painted using “Vallejo” US Olive Drab in exactly the same way as the first small Allied mech I completed earlier this month.

In addition, I’ve been progressing some British reinforcements in the shape of a second Shadow Cat, and significantly smaller Adder. Both will predominantly feature similar colour schemes to that of my Hawker-class mech. But I have actually repositioned my duplicate Shadow Cat by ‘unplugging’ its carapace from its legs, filing down the square peg used to join the two parts together, and super-gluing them back having turned the torso around somewhat to face in a different direction…