“The Valkyrie Was Originally Planned For Use By The Star League Defence Force.”

“But production of the BattleMech did not begin until 2787, after the fall of the Star League."

This 1:285 scale plastic model of a Valkyrie is made by “Catalyst Game Labs” and can be bought together with a Marauder, Archer, and Stinger in the company’s “Battletech: Inner Sphere Command Lance” 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 Focke-Wulf class German War Walker for an upcoming Weird War Two campaign utilising some homemade rules, I decided to go with a predominantly blue-grey palette.

Resultantly, the 33mm tall figure was initially primed using two layers of “Vallejo” Luftwaffe Uniform WWII and shaded in “Citadel” Nuln Oil. It was then dry-brushed using (more) “Vallejo” Luftwaffe Uniform WWII with a softly-bristled make-up blusher brush, and had its tiny windows ‘picked out’ with a dab of “Citadel” Abaddon Black.

"Battletech" WIPs - A Shadow Cat and Adder Prime are being painted as British War Walkers

In order to add a bit of interest to “the standard light Mech of the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns” I decided to apply a coat of “Vallejo” Gunmetal to its right gun-arm, chest-housed missile system, arm joints, rear rocker launcher and calf-mounted dual jets and later treat these areas to a wash of “Citadel” Nuln Oil. I also pulled out a German cross and some numerals from my collection of “Decal Details” and managed to squeeze them onto two flat pieces of armour plating on the sculpt's legs.

I did consider whether to add a swastika transfer to the model too, but ultimately decided against this as I intend to make the origins of my Third Reich war walkers’ manufacturing quite distinctive from one another for my games. In my Weird War Two campaign this particular Mech has been designed, developed, built and is being used by the German Air Force, whereas some of the other machines will belong to either the Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS, and it’ll be the latter military branch’s ‘Bots who’ll be adorned with the controversial emblem.

"Rocket Pig Games" WIPs - This Fungal Giant is slowly having its fungi picked out

In addition to my Axis forces, I have made some more progress on the Shadow Cat “Battletech” model I aim to paint up as a British Hawker-class War Walker. My intention is to get both this medium-sized mech and a similarly-sized French-flavoured one finished, and throw them into a battle against three smaller Axis machines to test out my homebrew rule-set. I have though, added a recently purchased Adder Prime model to my painting queue, in the hopes of providing the British with an additional attacking option during the early days of my Weird War Two campaign.

Lastly, I am desperately trying not to get overwhelmed with too many new projects, and persevere with a number of “Rocket Pig Games” resin figures 3D printed by "FullyCycled". This Fungal Giant should have been a fairly straightforward subject, but my enthusiasm for it was somewhat wilted upon its arrival when I saw that the 40mm scale model was disappointingly only 38mm in height…