Battletech: Hardware Studios Dropships size comparison & next paint schemes

[@franksmedley8619]

Hello COG The Leopards look great. Nice painting there! The Valkyrie is rather large, even though it fits models into it's rear cargo compartment. It's not really something I'd put on a tabletop. Mostly due to it's shear size. As for the Merrimack Drop Ship. I feel it is a bit under sized. I would suggest reprinting it about 15 to 20 percent larger to scale it to the Mech models. I doubt the Merrimack can hold more than a Lance (4) Mechs total. It's not a Union Class after all. Another design you might want to consider is a single-Mech Drop Pod. I designed one using the old Aerotech rules and it came to about 250 tons and could carry any Mech in the game safely down to the surface of a planet. My Drop Pod design had the engine and fuel, avionics and such all in the lower half of the 'egg' shaped pod, with the upper half (more like 1/3rd) of the pod able to fold out like a flower, part of the 'skin' being a ramp that extended down to ground level. You can either design and print such a thing yourself, or do I as I did... and buy the 'larger' sized, hollow Easter Eggs one can find all over the place during the Easter Season. You could also buy the smaller hollow plastic Easter Eggs and use them as well, with a bit of modification... the smaller size would barely fit a single model within it, so I added a hollow cylinder to the base of the egg and detailed that with thrusters, engines, piping, etc, and scored the egg itself to show the 'flower' petals panels of the pod. I even went so far as to cut one to show it open, with the ramp extended, where I could place it on the map and place a model atop it to start movement from there, or from the edge of the ramp. Just goes to show that one can make almost anything for this game out of almost anything one can find.

[@MikeKnell2884]

Paint the spherical dropship as mercenary, and the other as a clan dropship. The aerodyne one looks the most as a clan Broadsword dropship.

[@JosephStone_AKA_Nero]

Thank so much for showing these off. I like being able to see everything together. I would say chose your favorite faction for the scheme because I am partial to Draconis, but since you have multiple forces you could mabe make it a merc ship or generic navy dropship so it can drop anyone.

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Thank you! Yeah I keep going back and forth. I do wanna get another Valkyrie and make it a Kurita dropship!

[@franksmedley7372]

I feel a bit em-bare-ass-ed here. My previous posting didn't consider the video's intent... what to paint what. I think the Merrimack DS should be painted as your Merc unit. As for the big one... well... Either go with Jade Falcons, or hold it in reserve for your ComStar group. Lore-wise, ComStar had 'money to burn' at least up until the Dark Age. So it is not unrealistic for them to have such a large DS to use. First, they can afford it. Second, it might have come out of their caches of old Star League Era equipment.

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Great feedback! I havent painted my big dropship yet, but I do think Ill end up doing it in Jade Falcon colors!

[@squizzlor]

I love my “Overlord” dropship, aka union. And love that its great to show new Battle-tech enthusiasts for scale repesintstion.

[@death2all79zx]

Your paint schemes are amazing.

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Hey thank you so much, really appreciate that!

[@nicholasgordon4999]

The big dropship I'd do as Jade Falcon. I think you could make that look really good. The Merrimack you could do as Marik - but I wouldn't do half and half: I'd do nearly all of it that off-white with battle scoring, with purple accents here and there - like a band of purple around the middle or top only. It would be tricky to get looking right.

[@noahgoldman6743]

I would paint the big one in jade falcon colors since you can fit 5 mechs in it and since it's a green color it could double as a house liao if needed. The spheriod one i would paint as house marik in a quarted scheme.

[@envynemo4170]

the falcon navy color is green an a golden copper

[@semperatis]

We used to modify cistern ball floats,in order to make Confederate dropships, back in the late 80's. Size wise,they were almost spot on, but they were very hard to cut,even with a hacksaw, as the type of plastic kept clogging the teeth of the saw. I'd use the spheroid dropship as your unit for the Mercs, ala GDL.

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Oh wow that is a great use of a ball float!

[@zesicarius]

Hi. Very nice stuff. Did i heard that you were thinking about having a Comstar force ? In that case, you could paint the spheroide in a neural color to serve your merck company and Marik. And paint the aerodyne dropship in White mainly, to serve Comstar and clan faction.

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Oooh now I gotta think about my ComStar faction! Yes definitely want to do comstar ar some point, probably my next faction paint scheme

[@WinnipegKnightlyArts]

I like the house Marek colors, the valkyrie would look dope in those colors. maybe main body purple, with white stripes and an id color band

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Thanks! Im working up the notion of painting my next dropship as Marek!

[@WinnipegKnightlyArts]

@@CrankyOldGamer Since seeing this video you have made me want to get a dropship. I was playing with the rules on megamek, and combat drops are so fun.

[@JoeBossRedSeven]

🍷🤖🎩 THANKS for this badass review B-Tech Brother! I am just about to follow you into this wonderful TECH TURF collecting adventure! 🌆💞🏆

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Awesome! Love it!

[@JoeBossRedSeven]

@@CrankyOldGamer 🤗🛒💞

[@phaedrosx]

Valkyrie is like a Broadsword Clan DropShip, so Jade Turkey for it. As for the Spheroid DropShip, I'm not sure, all of the colored art suggests they don't really have a color scheme for them, usually just some sort of utilitarian color with insignia whether Clan or IS.

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Im pretty convinced to do the Valkyrie as Jade Falcon, you bring up a good point, utilitarian or parade colors...

[@skavenmatt3904]

Nuevo Castille for the egg shaped one!

[@CrankyOldGamer]

LOL that would be perfect! :D

[@spotH3D]

The large Aerodyne is supposed to be a Broadsword class, which is clan. The Merrimack can be whatever, but I love the Marik scheme.

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Thank you! I love the dropships, so cool. I may have to get another Geppard for Marik, one can never have enough drop ships!

[@sheilaolfieway1885]

that's quiet a redesign... thanks for that btw

[@funghazi]

I'd love to see a beat up merc spheroid. The aerodyne on the left looks to be a clan Broadsword, seems like that has to belong to a clan faction.

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Its funny you say that - literally after I got done filming, I thought to myself, what if that Valkyrie dropship was for the clans...

[@adamplaysbattletech3925]

Clan Wolf!

[@funghazi]

Also, it seems the spheroid is an Intruder, which is mostly a Marik design.

[@CrankyOldGamer]

@@funghazi Interesting - good point. I think I'm on the page where I take the Valkyrie / Broadsword and make that a Jade Falcon dropship. I kinda want to do the Merrimack as a merc one (cammo design or maybe even just generic) and get another Gepard (I know...) and make that a Marik dropship.

[@adamplaysbattletech3925]

I'd vote for the Valkyrie to be a Clan Dropship (eww... Jade Falcon..) and the Merrimack be a Silver Hawk dropship. Maybe paint the Merrimack in a quarterly scheme with the 4 quadrants (viewing top down)?

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Im really warming to the Broadsword/Valkyrue being clan - I hadn't really considered it but y'all are poibting me in that direction and its good!

[@PlasticraicGaming]

Give the drop ships generic colour schemes like OD camo and such. You can use them with various factions without to much visual contrast.

[@unclemiguel4221]

i want one of the spherical dropships as a charm on a necklace

[@CrankyOldGamer]

That would be amazing!

[@mr.gunzaku437]

Paint the Spheroid Lyran or FedSuns. Unless you don't like Liao. Lots of nice greens and yellows.

[@flyinggoomba5127]

Still missing the aerospace bays. Not sure why those keep being left out.

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Yeah agreed. Kinda weird, not sure why.

[@darkstorminc]

Hmmm... If these are fairly cheap it would be nice to chop up the Leopard into battlefield debris. Have it buried nose down and used as blocking terrain with a line of busted parts behind for rubble or rough terrain.

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Thats not a bad idea - they're about $65 a pop - so not terrible expensive but that would be a cool terrain piece, but yeah I guess a little expensive. I wonder if I can 3d print something like that...

[@adamplaysbattletech3925]

@@CrankyOldGamer There are broken dropship STLs you can work from.

[@CrankyOldGamer]

@@adamplaysbattletech3925 yeah thats what Im thinking. Id rather use a new dropship for an actual game piece

[@jasonfrazier422]

I kinda think the big dropship should be Merc. That way if you're running a campaign, the players have room for salvage.

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Totally!

[@Max-oi4kj]

Интересно, сколько смолы и сколько времени занимает печать шатла типа леопард

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Great question! I know you can buy printed versions of this Leopard frim Fortress Games. You can also get the Hardware Studios STL and get it printed on demand from Steel Warrior Studios. I bet they know amount of resin and cost.

[@baalguardian]

Are you going to get the Lance Carrier?

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Not sure - I've seen them but haven't pulled the trigger on them yet.

[@jackdunne6152]

where did you get the dropships?

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Those are all from Hardware Studios. Cheers!

[@josepablolunasanchez1283]

Where can I buy these dropships?

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Those are all from Hardware Studios: hardwarestudios.co/

[@KarrasATX]

Where can you get these?

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Check out Hardware Studios. I bought all of these from there. I think the link is in the video descriotion. If not just Google Hardware Studios and its one of the first links to come up.

[@mr.gunzaku437]

Inner Sphere Leopards are superior to Clan models because they carry their own pair of aerospace fighters that can give the IS lance a massive advantage.

[@watchm4ker]

A feature that almost every piece of art for the Leopards just neglects. Mind you, I also don't think I've ever seen art of a dropship with a proper docking collar, outside of... Probably the Argo in the 2018 game. Just... awkwardly jammed up against a Jumpship on what is otherwise a smooth section of hull.

[@colinmerritt7645]

Baby Union!

[@jonwooldridge3766]

Miramac (spheriod) = merc.

[@CrankyOldGamer]

Yes!!!