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Robotech was what first drew me into the world of big giant robots, from there I transistioned to Battletech and onto various minis games. I used to watch the show back in the 80's when I was a kid and even Transformers and stuff like Gundam couldn't come close to touching the awesomeness of Robotech.

Now as an adult I cringe when I rewatch the show as there's a distinct god-awfulness to much of the story and the animation but compared to the stuff that was on at the time it was pure gold and the mech designs are still at the top of my list for all time favorites. (despite the horridness of the show)

I've gotten hooked on wanting to build larger N-Scale mech models, something that worked it's way into my brain as a result of cruising the battletech forums. While I was googling for info on various models I saw a pair of posts on the The Miniatures Page forum .

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=132819

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=147276

http://boyntonartstudio.weebly.com/

Somebody had rounded up a bunch of the 1/200 scale Robotech Models and run some games with them. That was like a huge explosion going off in my head and launched my current crazy modelling crusade.

I already had a few of the models and figured it'd make an awesome table project to use at next years Adepticon. I've spent the last three months scrounging around on ebay and looking for the remaining models I need, finding a few but more often and cursing a lot at the lack of their avilability.

With hours and hours of searching and hunting somewhere along the way I learned a heck of a lot about the history of some of the older Robotech and Battletech models which I posted up here: http://www.mechdudesblog.blogspot.com/

Be forewarned it's really long and wanders all over the place.

All of these kits were originally mastered in 1983 so they are old as dirt, there's been a re-release of most of the kits in 2001 and again in 2007 but they are all out of print which has made finding them difficult. For as old as they are the quality is not bad and they look decidely better when painted. Some of the kits I had to do a double take on when I saw the pics on the game reports, the bare models can look decidely ugly at times but when painted they are infinately more appealing especially since it all pre-dates even 1st edition rouge trader 40k.

These are all going to need some work, they are a combination of snap together kits that also are held in place with small screws in the back of the torso. Later on I'll disassemble them and glue them so the gaps aren't so horrid.

The models are about 65-70mm tall so a crisis suit comes up to about arm pit level on them. I've mounted them all on 50mm bases.


Original model next to a CBT stinger for scale, the stock model has rather boring static pose:




I started cutting and reposing the models to give them a more dynamic look (still in progress)

These two will be for Max Sterling and Ben Dixon. A lot of the toys & models feature Max's veritech as the 1J version (2 head lasers), but for the majority of the series he flies a 1A model (1 head laser), although tweaked internally with the blue custom paint job it still has the 1A head so that what I decided to go with.





This is the skull squadron so far, it's missing VF-1J mechs for Rick Hunter and Miriya Sterling which are on the to do list after I finished the newest pair. It'll be used as a 5 man wing but I'll be doing a couple extra 1A bownie grunts for lower level games as skull squadron is jammed full of ace pilots which gets a bit unbalancing.




Skull Squadron Fighters:



Skull Squadron Gerwalk/Guardians:


All of the various fighters and gerwalks have the apropriate heads which required some swaps between differant models as all of the fighters originally had 1J heads and the Gerwalks only had 1A heads. The battroid versions are lacking 1J heads which I'm grabbing from the armored valkyrie model and casting so that I'll have enough for the final two mechs. I suppose it's a bit more effort than I need but I want everything to look in line with the series.


Armored Valkryies:




I have each version of the super Valkyrie fighter/gerwalk/battroid but it's currently unbuilt and I will be casting two extra copies of it so that I can run a squad of three for a high points game. Not a high priority at the moment as I'm planning on mostly basic level game play for the time being.


Destroids:




The Monster: (he's frickin huge!)







Here's the assorted Zentraedi so far. I have an extra scout pod and officers pod that aren't pictured. Unfortunately this is only about 1/3rd of the required force size for a larger game and I've already spent months tracking down this handful of mechs, so I'll be having to cast a bunch of them.




For the most part I am finished with the model collecting, I have about a half dozen unassembled veritechs in case i want to do a second squad. I may still pick up another couple destroids if they pop up but i should have enough to cover most games.

I'm just about done modifying the rules set and once I get some art and graphics finished up I'll put everything into a nice PDF file for download.

The next major phase is more reposing and then tons and tons of gap filling :ugh:

That's... That's incredible, man, I think my head just exploded at seeing so many big robots!

I have to say well done just for managing to source so many of these pieces. No small effort in itself.

I never played any of the Battletech ganmes but I have fond memories of playing Mechwarrior, Mech Commander and Mechwarrior3 ("Can you hold the line? Negative, commander, we need reinforcements!").

Good luck with this project, I'm chuffed to get the first comment in!

Good Luck. Robotech roped me in too.

Anyways here's some group shots, starting off with a scale shot with a crisis suit.




Realistically the Zentraedi mechs shopuld be bigger as their pilots are the same height as the Valkyrie. Apparently they ride in some twisted up Zen Lotus posistion, seems kinda like how Tau magically fit in their undersized crisis suits




The growing Host of Zentraedi, they almost all had their molds lines scraped down all that's left is filling the screw holws and they are ready for paint. I have 2 more scouts and 3 officer pods that are unpictured as they still need to built. There's also a tactical missing as I'm building molds from it so I can cast the other 10-20 copies I'll need for mass battles. I will also probably end up copying the officer pod and female power armor as they are very tough to get and I need at least 5 more of the female armor to round out a squad of them.




Destroids I'm up to full 5 man squads of each type, I have 1 extra of the defender and tomahawk that are unbuilt. I am also up to two monsters now (which aren't in the pic)



The full squad of Armored Valkyries, these are just about my favorite version of the Valkyrie, but they won't be a high priority as they are very powerful and don't show up until 2/3rds of the way through the series so unlikely to be used with early games as I'll need to have plenty of the heavier Zentraedi stuff to balance them.




Asembled I have a full squad of 6 basic valkyries in each form Batteroid, Guardian and Fighter, so that's another 18 models not pictured.

Unassembled I still have a giant pile of other valkyries, I have a 6 man squad of super valkyries in all 3 forms (18 models) and
at least 2 more squads of basic valks in guardian and batteroid form, with only one squad worth of fighters as they are dang expensive compaired to the robot forms. The robot forms are quite common so they usually about $5 each, but the fighters go for around $20 each which stinks.

All total I probably have around 40 or so models still in the box, they aren't need right away so they will likely be on the back burner for a long time. I figured I should pick them up while they were still around as I don't know if I'd be able to find them down the road.



here's sample shots showing the filler work that has to be done to each model before it gets primed.

All the holes got patched with expoxy sculpt which has a ceramic like feel once cured and takes to scraping and sanding really well. With most situations it's quickly replacing greenstuff as the working properties are way better, it softens with water and also sets up faster.

There's a total of 6 screw holes on each model plus a number of the models feature a dent on top of the head and huge gaps along the laser dome.









This last pic shows the upgrade in base size, not quite as noticable head on but definately noticeable from the side as the leg posistions can be spaced wider. (Old 50mm base on the right, new 60mm base on the right.) I've also put in an order to Privateer Press for a couple of their ginat 120mm bases so that I can put the MacII Monsters on them. Even at a whopping 4 inches across it barely fits on them.




I'm also starting to get the rules together to put into a PDF, tinkering with a few layout ideas to try and get something slick put together graphically so it doesn't look so bland.

I'm not sure if I should do it in greyscale tones or go for full color. Any suggestions on the format are most welcome













I've posted some of the basic rules in a blog here: http://mechdudesblog.blogspot.com/

I'll be expanding on that as I'm able.

Dude, I LOVED Robotech back in the day, used to jump off the schoolbus and run home to watch that and Voltron. This definitely brings back fond memories. Where did you find all these and is it hard to find games? I didn't even know there was a game based around models of that scale. I can't wait to see them all painted up!

So far I've only played some very small games against a few friends to test play the basic rules. The biggest obstacle is finding the models, it'd probably be easier to just use old battletech miniatures. But part of the challenge for this is the collection and modelling. Most of them were picked up on ebay, but with months of time spent looking for them.

I'm looking into having some computer models done so I can rapid prototype models for people interested in building their own army. It's also possible that they will rerelease the model kits next year for the Macross/Robotech aniversary which would make them easily available (and affordable) at least for a while.

In the first posts there's some links to games people posted on the TMP forums which got me inspired to start this project up.

I'm aiming to get a game table done in time for Adepticon which I'd have available for open play, that way people could just stop by and give it a try without needing their own stuff.

Paint!!!!

With the exception of priming one of my large scale battletech models I realized that it's been over a year since I've painted anything. :eek: I picked up some new paints as the old ones were getting a bit dried out and gummy. This has a long way to go before it's finished but I started blocking out the color and it's starting to look like something other than a boring white piece of plastic.

I'm not the worlds best painter and I'm going to have to do about 30 of these so I'm simply aiming for a good tabletop standard rather than anything flashy. It'll get a wash and maybe some basic highlights. I used a mix of GW and PP paints, the blue is GW enchanted blue, the P3 paints are frostbite which is an off white blue and thamar black.

I may lighten up the white a bit but I was aiming for an offwhite for a couple reasons, in the animations the white is almost always a milky off white color that reminds me of white out which is probably a result of how they paint the amination cells. It also has the benefit of letting me see what areas I've already covered. The plastic is a pretty stark white color so skull white wasn't showing and I couldn't tell how thick the paint was going on and where I'd already covered.

Anyways not much to look at just yet, but a small personal milestone as it's been ages since I touched a brush.





Also my buddy Seb took a crack at doing some cutom graphics for the PDF. I think these came out really killer and much better than the earlier versions I'd worked on.

Looks great so far! I had sort of the same idea back in 2006 after playing in a game at Origins Game Fair similar to the one you linked over on TMP. When I looked into the prices of the minis, I was quite shocked at how expensive the 1/200 kits were and actually found it cheaper to buy the old matchbox and robotech battle pod toys to do a mega scale game (also inspired by the Battletech megascale games from GenCon). I did pick up some battletech and palladium metal regular battlepods and officer variants as well as a few boxes of the screw kits (labelled as battletech) for the valks despite my possible change in scale... but never did anything with them ultimately. Either way, I'll live vicariously through your superior modelling and spending! Subscribed.

Yeah the project price tag did balloon way above what I'd initally expected. I'd been looking at about $300-$400 to aquire enough kits to make a playable game which is a fair amount but it's also covering two armies rather than just a single side.

The veritechs/valkyries are dirt cheap compaired to most of the models, there's a couple sellers on ebay selling 4 nichimo kits for $40 as there's 2 models per kit that breaks down to about $5 a piece which isn't bad (4 battroids 4 guardians). At that price it's cheaper than buying 40k models.

The problem comes in with the destroids and particuarly the zentraedi pods. The destroids tend to come in about $10-$20 per model, if you only want one of each it's not too bad but if you want squads of 3 or 5 then the price shoots up fast. The Zentraedi pods and veritechs in fighter form run upwards to $20 each which hurts considering you need about twice as many pods as the macross side mechs.

You can keep the costs down by using the Yamato prepainted figures as they make a VF-1J in all three forms which average $5-$10 so it a good option for cheaper fighters.

The big fail point for me was that I like to do things big so I opted for lots of mechs which pushed the budget way up and I think I'm probably into the project for $800-$1,000 at this point. As I quit 40k I justified that by the reasoning of "as long as it's cheaper than a new 40k army", but using that as a measuring stick is kinda dumb as 40k armies are not cheap and it's a very easy thing to slide the scale upwards. As long as it's not as expensive as a 4,00 point army, or a 15,000 point ork list etc, etc. I'm content with where I'm at for the force sizes but it wasn't cheap but since it's replaced all my 40k endevors I guess it all balances out.

I know the larger scale can be difficult as it requires more room and set up time so I've also been tinkeringa round with getting some models done in the standard battletech scale. I comissioned a regult that will hopefully be done shortly and I have been building 3D models for the destroids. As they are going to be smaller they will cut the cost considerably when I have them cast, and until I get new versions of all the various models together I can sub in battletech minis. All that'd need to be done to the rules is to change the scale by cutting down the movement and weapon ranges, of if people prefer they can just use adapated battletech rules.

My primary focus is to get the large scale stuff done first but I do have backburner plans to make a much larger group of stuff in battletech scale and include stuff like the zentraedi space fighters that there's no way I can tackle in large scale.