RoboTech KickStarter

   

Left to Right: Macross, Southern Cross, Genesis Climber Mospeada mecha.

I'm not going to cover the whole debacle of Harmony Gold, Palladium and or the fractious relationship Robotech from Harmony Gold had with BattleTech by FASA. You can read more about the recent furore about the Robotech KickStarter here on Sitzkrieg's site, which is well worth following if you're a mecha and Star Trek fan, and who isn't?

But, if you've been reading this blog for anytime, or have delved into the depths of my archive, you will know that I have  a thing about sizes of things.  Just check out my pieces comparing sizes of models here. 

So, I wanted to add some observations on the problems of pleasing a fanbase, and trying to square the circle, to run out a well used cliché.

Size matters. The above illustration is from here.

The Robotech TV series was divided into three parts: The Macross Saga; The Masters; and The New Generation. Alternative titles being the First, Second and Third Robotech Wars. Harmony Gold put their show together by adapting three separate Japanese anime series.

The first was The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, alternative title Hyper Dimensional Fortress Macross. Macross is a big deal in Japan, probably second only to Gundam.

The second show used was Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, which was originally the third in the Super Dimension series. And by series think, theme.

The third show used to create Robotech was Genesis Climber MOSPEADA. My Japanese friends tell me that Mospeada was a Japlish portmanteau word, for most speed or more speed.

So the size of each shows mecha differed considerably, not only because of the choices made by Harmony Gold, but because the original Japanese creators didn't have in mind some unified 'verse for wargamers to move models of the mecha around, while making pew-pew noises.

For general information, the Japanese really didn't take into account the market outside of Japan back in the eighties. I'm not fully convinced they do now, but things have got better.

NB: Super Dimension Century Orguss, which was the second official thematic sequel to Super Dimension series, Harmony Gold was unable to use due to issues over rights, see here for more details.
  

About TIme

Super Dimensional Fortress Macross has moved one step closer to becoming a live-action movie.  I want to thank Robotech Battles blog for the heads up.  I've also added your blog to my front page blog list as a result.  Should have done that a while ago if truth be told, but them's just the way things happen at times.

Seeing Robotech for the first time was one of those big sense of wonder moments when I was over whelmed by the concepts of giant aliens from space having their asses handed to them by people flying transformable robots.  I guess you had to be there to appreciate what a big thing this was at the time?

I remember Helen McCarthy, who writes about Japanese culture and anime on her blog A Face Made for Radio running an anime fan run video stream at the 1987 Eastercon, where she pretty much kicked Japanese animation into the forefront of UK SF fandom scene by showing Urotsukidoji, otherwise known as The Legend of the Overfiend to an unsuspecting audience, which pretty much made everyone role for sanity loss.

So with Palladium moving towards a Robotech wargame and the now this movie, I see much happy giant stompy robot wargame goodness in the future.  It's heartening for an old time fan like me to see a new generation being exposed to something I love.
  

Marik Marauders: 1: Updated Photos

The Marauders are the second of my battlemech company's that I can field. I was hung up about calling them Marik's Marauders, because I wasn't sure I want to tie myself that tightly into the BattleTech universe, but eventually went and decaled them up as House Marik.

The core of the Company is going to be three Marauder battlemechs, two of which you can see above.

The Marauder mechs are of course from Super Dimensional Fortress Macross aka Super Spacetime Fortress Macross, or more commonly known in the West as Robotech: The Macross Saga. The mechs were based on the Zentradi Glaug command battle pod, which later caused FASA and its successor companies no end of problems over copyright. 

These were originally painted in pink, but when I got back into BattleTech, a couple of years ago, I decided that I would build my companies around the visual differences between human bipedal mechs versus chicken leg walkers. Hence these got stripped and repainted. The camouflage is based on German aircraft WW2 splinter pattern.

Above are three Locusts that were taken from the Crusher Joe anime series by FASA, where they were called Ostall's (Note: not to be confused with the FASA Ostsol's, which were originally badly rendered versions of the Macross Zentradi Esbeliben Regult battle pods). 

These Locusts are used to represent the 1V machine gun version. I have also used these in the past to represent the 1S SRM variant, but I'm now building up three more original unseen Locusts to more closely represent this variant. I'm using the SRM pods from the current Locust that IWM sell, since the parts looks chunkier. 

Finally, the last Locust is a 1E variant with two medium lasers and two small lasers, except it's a custom variant where the small lasers are mounted in the center torso.

The reason for doing this is that without the medium laser turret that usually sits there I thought the model didn't look right. When I originally made this Locust I kept the main laser, but the design causes too much armour to be dropped, but YMMV.

Pink Panther Battalion

I've been reviewing my blogs, and I see that a couple of posts have no comments on them and I kind of wondered why? I reasoned that I said nothing that anyone felt was worth commenting on, which is fair enough.

Comments really inspire me to write more, so I thought about what to do? What I thought is that rather than just post pictures of my mechs, sans pretty much anything, I would add some comments and fluff, which will hopefully generate more comments.

My favourite BattleTech mechs come mostly from the anime show Fang of the Sun Dougram, known in Japan as Taiyō no Kiba Daguramu. This is one of three shows that FASA used the mechs from for their Battledroids game, which due to Lucas Films owning the word "droid" was renamed Battletech.

The other two shows were Crusher Joe, known as Kurasshā Jō where the Locust battlemech and Galleon light tank designs came from, and the series Super Dimensional Fortress Macross known in Japan as Chō Jikū Yōsai Makurosu, which actually translates as Super Spacetime Fortress Macross, which is of course the show that was the basis for the TV series Robotech by Harmony Gold.

My other favourite mechs being the Destroids that became know as the Rifleman, Archer, Warhammer and Longbow, plus the Valkyrie's that became the basis for the Wasp, Stinger, Phoenix Hawk and Crusader. Other designs were used, or based upon Macross designs, including the Marauder, along with the Ostall series, name from Crusher Joe; the image being an interpretation of the Zentradi battle pods. All of this being old news to OSR fans like myself.

However, for now let me talk you through the Pink Panther Battalion.

The picture at the top of the post is the first Company of the Pink Panther Battalion. It looks like a standard 12 mech lance, but in fact is organised into two 5 mech lances and a command element of 2 mechs.

The mech front and centre left in this photo is a custom modified Griffin that was turned into a representation of Fang of the Sun Dougram Bushman mech. Though it is a little too large in actual fact. However, I do have a couple of Gashapon Bushmen that I intend to use in my recon lances at some point. So this mech will be re-imagined as a Griffin command variant.

Here is my Alpha lance. It has all my favourites mechs in it from the show Fang of the Sun Dougram. The Battlemaster at the back of the pictures, which was known in the show as the Soltic HT-128 "Bigfoot".

This is an original "unseen" model with no particular modifications made to it, and was originally painted up in the late 80s, so it is 20 years old. I intend to refurbish the aerials at some point on all my old models, as at the time I used piano wire, but want to use finer guitar string, as it will look better. I also have a whole bunch of custom Pink Panther unit decals from Fighting Pirranha Graphics to add as well.

 In the centre of the picture is my first Thunderbolt, which was known as the Hasty F4X "Ironfoot". This has been modified with a PPC on its right arm, and I've replaced the rather wimpy rocket launcher that came with the model with something more substantial, to make it look closer to the original design.

The Griffin, known as Soltic H8 "Roundfacer", is a newly modified model that has been turned into the 24th Battalion Custom"Korchima Special" from the show. 

The Shadow Hawk, known as the "Dougram" that the show is named after, has only had a minor alteration to it, which was to make the over the shoulder cannon rotate on a bearing. Originally I just used a pin through the casting, but after 20 years this was showing signs of failure, so I rebuilt the joint using brass bearings.

Finally, the Wolverine, known as Abitate T-10C "Blockhead", is another newly made model that has been reposed, and it has had the main weapon replaced with a spare casting given to me by Glenn Wallbridge, a friend of mine who use to make model masters for casting for firms like Akhenaton Models.

My Bravo lance is more of the same, because if one lance of Dougram mechs is good, two must be better.

In the centre is a customised Battlemaster, which has also been reposed. The Wolverine, Griffin and Shadow Hawk are all standard original "unseen" models. The Thunderbolt is a newly painted up and reposed "unseen" model that I finished last year. It keeps the original weapon, but I have again replaced the rocket launcher and done a lot of finessing to the pose of the model.

To me all the Dougram show mechs just look right. I have managed to acquire the main books on Fang of the Sun Dougram show, and I intend to post snippets of art from them in the future. It will be my tribute to this seminal "mecha" show that has not really been heard about, yet it was a big success in Japan, with model kits still being produced today, which is a real indicator of how influential it must have had at the time.

Finally, here are a few of the mechs I have in my second and third Company's.

With a total of 20 mechs painted up for my Pink Panthers, I'm not under any pressure to add more models at this time, so neither Company is complete.

 On my workbench I have an Archer and Phoenix Hawk that are awaiting some love and attention, both of which are highly modified rebuild to correct deficiencies in the original design interpretation and casting. Unfortunately my time is limited, and in what time I have I've been mostly driven by the urge to get some opposition painted up, and this has taken up my spare time somewhat.

However, I actually have two each of the Warhammer, Rifleman, Spider and Wasp that you can see in the above picture. The second Company is based around Macross Destroid designs, with odd FASA in house designs that I quite like in the third Company.