For a relatively brief period around the 4th Succession Wars, the Waco Rangers increased their complement by adding armour and infantry forces to their core 'Mech regiment. There's some confusion as to whether the Rangers were serving House Davion or House Steiner at the time; it seems likely Hanse was paying the Ranger's fees, while lending them to Katrina. After all, the Rangers were at that time considered a well-performing command with excellent technical support, just the sort of thing needed to stiffen Lyran thews in time for the 4th War. - and the Colonel's obsession with the Dragoons was perceived more as a foible than an obsession. I've chosen to represent a combined-arms force from that period.
The 'Mech company.
The Command/Heavy Battle lance consists of an Awesome AWS-8R, Grasshopper GHR-5N, Banshee BNS-3M and a Trebuchet TBT-7K.
The Fire Support/Medium Battle lance is made up of an Hunchback HBK-4J, Hornet HNT-151, Whitworth WTH-1 and Enforcer ENF-4R.
While the Striker lance consists of a Quickdraw QKD-5A, Assassin, ASN-23, Clint CLNT-2-3T and Enforcer ENF-4R.
The Armour company has
- a Command Platoon of Scorpion tanks
- a Recon Platoon of J Edgar Hovers
- a Support Platoon of paired SRM Carriers and Hunter Support Tanks.
The Scorpions I had a little fun with:
being the Standard, LRM, SRM and ML variants. In AS formation terms, the only thing these guys can be is, oddly enough, a Command unit!
And finally the 3rd Company:
Platoons of mechanised hover and tracked infantry, plus a foot platoon with integral Heavy APC SRM-variant.
So this unit started in 2013, with a demi-company of Waco 'mechs. They were all 25th Anniversary plastics, and I decided to have some fun modding them, based on the comments re the Ranger's tech support capacity. The relatively poor quality of those plastics was not a problem for a hard-worn unit like this.
At some later time, I expanded them to a full company. And there they sat ... until Christmas, when I decided to promote them to full battalion status, as part of my Grand Plan. I tried to use things I had on hand - it seemed that the Rangers must not have had a particularly good experience with their add-ons, so I didn't want anything too exciting.
I've always loved the Scorpion in concept, and so it was nice to do up the various versions. The J Edgar is another favourite mini, that looks great and paints up well. And I was meant to add a platoon of Hunters, but I only had 2 ... and then discovered I had two SRM carriers left over. The resulting mix isn't useless, but it's hardly optimised, and not particularly tough.
Colour matching with 6-year-old minis took a bit, as I no longer had (or knew) what paints I'd used, but I think I got near enough.
A nice catchy unit which may (with luck) get to be someone's opfor down the line.
Comments/questions always appreciated,
W.
