Another non-Catalyst employee jumping on the bandwagon. I'm still waiting on my copy of the AS Companion to arrive, but I've got a pretty good idea of how things are going to be organized. The Viper's Rho Galaxy was my go-to Clan unit back when I first played Battletech. I'm not going to lie, it was entirely because of the swish viper-coiled-around-a-rose emblem.
The problem with Rho is that there is no formal description of their paint scheme. The Warden FM doesn't mention anythng and CamoSpecs doesn't seem to have anything official. When I played ten years ago, I opted for a dark metallic steel base, gold highlights, and some flat green stripes to simulate vines (ala the rose from the emblem). For this project, I want to stick with the basics of that plan, but cleaned up. Metallic steel base, no highlights, green thornbush vines creeping up the right leg.
Mechs definitely included will be:
Battle Cobra Prime
Black Python
Crossbow
Crossbow
Crossbow
(not sure what variants the Crossbows will be)
Backing the mechs up will either be a mess of Protomechs or Elementals. Technically Rho is a second-line unit, but the 5th Legion has Elemental support according to the Warden FM.
All the necessary minis are already waiting in a box upstairs, so pics of Stage One will be along shortly.
Cheers!
**EDIT**
After finishing the first star and seeing what I have left to work with, I've finally decided on a roster.
Star #1 - Striker/Heavy Striker Star
Battle Cobra Prime (Skill 3) 34pts
Black Python 1 (Skill 3) 52pts
Black Python 3 (Skill 3) 55pts
Crossbow A (Skill 3) 48pts
Crossbow B (Skill 3) 46pts
Star #1 Total 235pts
Star #2 - Combined Arms Support Star
Roc 1 Protomech X 5 (Skill 4) 45pts
Centaur 3 Protomech X 5 (Skill 4) 45pts
Elemental Battle Armor (Laser) 16pts
Elemental Battle Armor (Laser) 16pts
Elemental Battle Armor (Laser) 16pts
Star #2 Total 138pts
Binary Total 373pts
The protomechs have roughly the same movement profile as the mech star and there are enough omnimechs that all three Elemental points can hitch a ride. In a perfect world - and if the point cap was higher - I would add a second star of mechs for indirect fire support. One of the proto points would hang out with the missile boats as guards and the other proto point would skulk around as spotters. I'm pretty happy with stopping at a binary, though, especially since the roster is pretty Steel Viper-y. I would rather keep a display unit like this small and fluff-accurate than expanding it to include whatever random mechs I have stashed away in a drawer somewhere. That being said, once the binary is painted, I might snag some GHQ minis to add some conventional infantry assets.